Kaushik Mitra

Ra-One

2011-11-17T08:18:00.002+05:30

Ra.One (Random Access - Version 1.0) is a 2011 Hindi science fiction superhero film written and directed by Anubhav Sinha, and starring Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal in the lead roles. It also stars Shahana Goswami, Dalip Tahil and Chinese-American actor Tom Wu in supporting roles, along with Rajinikanth, Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra making guest appearances. The film is jointly produced by Eros International and Khan's production company, Red Chillies Entertainment, and was originally scheduled to release on 3 June 2011. However, due to extensive post-production work involving special effects and the 3D conversion, its release was postponed, and is now set to have a worldwide opening during the Diwali weekend of 26 October 2011. Ra.One is currently India's most expensive film to date and will be released in both 2D and 3D formats across over 5,000 screens worldwide in 2D and around 550 screens in 3D, along with its dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu and German.

Ra One Movie Preview:

A father trying hard to 'fit-in' in his Son's badass world- A son ... is trying hard to 'dude-up' his dad from 'aiiiyyyo' to 'YO!' And a mother lost in translation between her husband's 'ingeva' and her son's 'Inn'it!'

While Shekhar was trying every trick in the book to woo his son, get 'dude-ified' and 'up his coolness quotient' his son had given up on him...

Just when the father-son duo hit a deadlock- Shekhara strikes gold when he designs one hell of a game.

Finally it all starts falling in place...

...as the family comes together... ...only to find themselves in the middle of a crash... ...not just a hard drive crash but a crash that would drive them to a disaster and make their lives go - KABOOM!!!

...All hell breaks loose when - the game that was meant to be played with... starts playing them...

Ra.One- The next level.

Character Sketches:

G.ONE (The Good One)

G.one stands for the 'Good one'. He is made of electricity and is programmed to protect. He is infused with powers to fly, speak different languages and control probability amongst other things. G.One’s powers are centered in his HART. (Hertz Amplifying Resonance Transmitter) What makes G.one endearing is his bond with the kid - Prateek. He is not just another super hero with weapons and metal parts... He is a superhero with a H. A. R. T.

PRATEEK SUBRAMANIAM

Prateek is A – bad ass whiz kid, and an ace video game player. He is in the school rock band and plays for the school football team, and loves to skateboard, but video games is his first love and he is capable of playing even the most difficult games with ease. Prateek belongs to the 'bad is cool' set of kids. He loves villains and feels that heroes are boring and predictable. Just Like any other teenage kid, Prateek doesn’t get along with his nerdy father and is embarrassed by his loud Punjabi mother, so he mostly hangs out with his friends and his video games.

SHEKHAR SUBRAMANIAM

Shekhar is a South Indian game designer, who still hasn’t come up with a single successful video game. Shekhar is a fun loving guy, who loves his family but spends most of his time in his game design lab rather than with his family the only problem in his life is his estranged relationship with his son, Prateek. A relationship which he tries to better but usually ends up making it worst. Shekhar’s main aim in life is to win back the love of his son, for which he is ready to try every trick in the book. A foodie at heart, he has some really weird eating habits. Apart from food Shekhar also loves quoting great philosophers and revolutionaries, while at the same time adding his own modern day twist to it.

SONIA SUBRAMANIAM

Sonia is a beautiful punjabi woman, full of life and zest. She is ready to face any obstacles that come her way, except modern technology. Sonia is technologically challenged and she literally runs away from technology. A feminist by nature, Sonia aims to pen down a book on male centric abuses. Amongst the family of three - Sonia often finds herself acting as an adhesive between her geeky husband Shekhar and her cool son Prateek, who are constantly fighting. Sonia is hopeful that one day this father- son duo will finally bond.

Production (Origins and Development)

According to director Anubhav Sinha, the idea of making Ra.One originated while he was watching a commercial on television six years ago. Sinha said, "The commercial dealt with two kids controlling a human with a remote. It was fascinating, and the visual stayed with me for some time." Sinha wrote a three-page short story based on the commercial, which he felt was good enough to be made into a film. Upon finalizing the story, he approached Shahrukh Khan with the film in August 2005, and Khan instantly agreed to produce and star in it. Red Chillies Entertainment's Keitan Yadav revealed that during the release of Main Hoon Na (2004), Khan was keen on making a VFX-loaded film that was larger than life. His production company continued working on other projects and seeking for the right film until they finally decided on Ra.One. Prior to starting the film, Khan approached several directors to helm the project but they all refused due to various concerns.

"Ra.One is the modern, new age technology version of our mythological "Raavan", who was a mixture of ten different evil characters. I am essaying the role of G.One or better say "Jeevan", a superhero who saves the mankind from Ra.One's torment. Through this film, I want to prove that Indian superheroes can also be as cool as the international ones."

—Shahrukh Khan on Ra.One

Pre-production work for the film began in November 2007 after the release of Khan's Om Shanti Om (2007). Sinha spent several months going through video clips, digital art portals and comic books; he later explained that this process helped him in creating a novel character. Khan stated that "When we started this film, the idea was can we make a simple film, about a husband, wife and child and then suddenly blow everyone's mind when they start fighting [...] So there were two films in one: the people who like the action...and those who like a family film." To prepare for the film's premises and characterization, Sinha and Khan watched as many as 200 superhero films in multiple languages from all over the world, including Spider-Man (2002), Batman (1989) and Krrish (2006).

Since the start of principal photography, Ra.One has faced multiple allegations of plagiarism and similarities with other film projects, including the 2010 Tamil science fiction film Enthiran. When asked about this, Khan noted: "I got inspired from a lot of superhero movies but the movie is original. In fact, Ra.One will be the first superhero-based movie in the world in which the superhero lives in a family." Commenting on Enthiran, he remarked, "they [both] are different films. I will not like to talk about anyone else's film but Rajni sir is respectable to all of us." Days before its release, Ra.One attracted media attention when script-writer Yash Patnaik claimed that the film resembled a concept that he had developed several years back. Patnaik subsequently moved his appeal to the Bombay High Court, pleading for a stay in the film's release.

Casting and Filming

Principal photography for the film began in March 2009, one-and-a-half year after pre-production work began. As a way to make his character more believable, Khan decided that he would perform his own stunts in the film. Sinha approached his friend Arjun Rampal to take up the title role of a villain in the film, to which he readily agreed, and Kareena Kapoor was later signed on to play the female lead. Child actor Armaan Verma was required to go through several audition processes until he was finally selected to play the role of Prateek. During an appearance on the chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Khan stated that Jackie Chan was "approached for a role in the film". Khan had reportedly sent Chan the detailed script of the film, along with the action sequences and a brief synopsis of his character; it was later confirmed that Chan would not be part of the project. In July 2010, it was announced that Chinese-American actor Tom Wu would be part of the film.

Actors Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra were confirmed to make guest appearances whilst actor Rajinikanth was slated to perform in a special scene where he would be reprising his role of Chitti from Enthiran (2010). The actor shot for the film on 2 October 2011 at Subhash Ghai's Whistling Woods Studios in Mumbai with his daughter Soundarya despite some health problems. To minimize strain on the actor, the shoot was finished in a few hours and the scenes were digitally transferred into the necessary backgrouds later on. Several days later, it was announced that Amitabh Bachchan would be doing a voice-over for an important scene in the film.

Ra.One's shooting was originally supposed to begin in Miami, USA, but due to budget concerns this was scrapped. The first phase of filming began in India in March 2010 and continued until May in Mumbai's Film City and Goa. While filming, Khan admitted to finding difficulties with the rubber-made costume that was specially designed for his character, later commenting: "The costume was designed in a way that I had to take the help of girls to get into it and vice-versa. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink much in between the shoots [...] By the time, the shooting of the film was wrapped up; I ended up losing ten kilos." Verma, who plays Khan's son in the film, had to learn the Brazilian martial arts dance Capoeira in preparation for his role. A chase scene along a Mumbai suburban train, in which Khan jumped from one compartment to another while Kapoor operated the train, received objections from the city government as they feared that the scene would entice teenagers to emulate the stunts. Subsequently, a disclaimer was added to the movie warning youngsters to refrain from performing any dangerous stunts shown in the film.

Production of the film's second and third phase occurred with the entire cast in London, which included a song sequence being shot in a restaurant from where the London Bridge was visible and a heavy duty action scene involving Khan and Kapoor. During this period, a picture of Kapoor's character was also revealed to the media. The film's final phase commenced at Filmistan Studio in December 2010 and was shot over seven days. The remaining portions were shot in Mumbai and completed in July 2011. While shooting for the film in Mumbai, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Yash Raj Studios, to watch Khan at work. In order to celebrate the film's completion, a wrap-up party was held at the end of the month in Mumbai. A music video for the song "Raftaarein", choreographed by Feroz Khan and picturised on Khan, was shot one week before release. Talking about the decision to make the last minute addition to the film, Sinha said: ""Raftaarein" was initially just a melody playing in a background sequence. But [the song] has got unanimously great reviews and has amazing energy. I thought why not shoot a music video and put it in the film."

Post-Production

The film's crew consisted of more than 5,000 members from India, Italy and the US, and was pieced together by more than 1,000 people, working in shifts, in around 15 studios across the world. Nicola Pecorini was roped in as the director of photography, with V. Manikandan providing extra assistance, and Martin Walsh was responsible to edit the film. Sound designer Resul Pookutty was assigned the duty of enhancing the sound effects with the use of the Dolby Surround 7.1 system. In an interview, he explained, "Ra.One is not just a movie experience [...] It requires a very unconventional sound and visual quality for which we are installing the required equipment." In October 2011, post-production work on Ra.One faced a minor setback when Pookutty's studio-space in Andheri, Mumbai got flooded, and eventually damaged some of the film's footage.

Due to the revived interest in 3D technology in India, the makers of the film announced that they were contemplating on turning portions of the movie into 3D. Khan revealed that parts of the film may be converted to 3D, provided tests and screen-shots of some scenes of the film were deemed satisfactory by the technical crew. However, there was a good deal of skepticism regarding such conversions, especially since 3D shooting required completely different types of cameras. In July 2011, it was announced that the entire film would be converted into 3D, a process that required the collaboration of around 1,000 individuals. Prime Focus, which had gained considerable experience from performing 3D conversions of major Hollywood productions The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), were tasked with the 3D conversion of Ra.One. A separate conversion facility was created solely for the purpose of the 3D conversion of the film.

Initially, the prints of Ra.One were expected to be ready a month prior to its release. However, the post-production work took up a considerably longer time to complete than was initially expected, triggering fears that the film may not be able to reach its Diwali deadline. Three studios worked around-the-clock to get the film ready before its scheduled release date. Pookutty stated in a report: "[The crew] working on the post-production of Ra.One are in a high-energy zone. We are racing against time [and over] the next two weeks there are going to be number of sleepless nights to make sure [the film] gets into theatres on time." Ten days before the film's release, Khan reportedly became upset over the post-production crew for severe delays in the process of digital inter-mediation in the film. Sinha however commented that "there are a lot of things happening in the post-production activities. We all are working hard towards it. But everything is fine." As the film approached its release, Khan personally verified the progress on a day-to-day basis, with complete reports regarding the status of completion. Increased workload was also attributed to "multiplied work" due to the various versions (3D, Tamil, Telugu, etc.) of the film. It was also confirmed that all studios working on the film's visual effects had been released, as "not much of the work on visual effects is left [...] There are very few details left that are being worked upon. Once that is done, we will go to print."

Visual Effects

March 2010 saw the inclusion of several visual effects techniques being incorporated in the production of Ra.One. In an interview, Harry Hingorani (production director of Red Chillies VFX) stated that "[the company] was set up in 2006 [...] Khan wanted to make something big involving VFX and that was the intension behind starting [it]." Extensive research was carried out by the crew, and no other films were accepted by the studio post My Name Is Khan (2010), with special focus on setting up proper software and creating "the right team" during pre-production itself. To minimize the risk of future delays, the task of adding special effects was outsourced to multiple specialty studios around the globe, including in the United States, London, Paris and Bangkok. In addition, Prime Focus also provided digital and visual effects services to Red Chillies VFX for the film.

Impressed by the work he had seen in the 1994 Hollywood release Stargate, Jeff Kleiser was hired by Khan as the supervisor of visual effects in May 2010. A team of 750 technicians under Kleiser carried out the addition of special effects into the film. Special effects creator Robert Kurtzman was assigned to design the suits of Khan and Rampal's characters. The suits were made by a team of specialists based in Los Angeles, California. While both the actors shot the film wearing a simple suit, a good deal of sparkle and polishing was later added to enhance its look.

The film is reported to have close to 3,500 VFX shots (occupying about 135 minutes of footage), with 800 of them being solely dedicated to G.One's suit alone, thus exceeding the total amount of shots that was used in the 2009 Hollywood film Avatar. Khan later singled out one process, explaining that it took nearly six days (137 hours) to create a single frame shot of glass flying on his character. Keitan Yadav notes: "There is no software or technique in the industry that we have not used for this film. For 3D, we have used software like Maya, Houdini and Macs. For composites, we have used Nuke and Shake. We have even written our own programmes. We programmed certain things rather than doing them manually."

The film's visual effects have generated massive curiosity among moviegoers, film distributors and critics, and have been labelled as "the best India has ever seen [and] on par with Hollywood". Hingorani stated that "60% of the film is visual effects. There are 37 sequences in all, and they were considerably difficult and time-consuming." Jeff Kleiser commented that the most challenging part of Ra.One was creating the cubic transformations for the lead characters. It was later found out that the incorporation of visual effects was the main reason behind the increased time for post-production. The final batch of visual effects shots for the film were delivered on October 19, a week before the scheduled release and much delayed beyond the expected time. As a result, the crew were left with only two days to complete the film and send it for printing, further increasing anxiety regarding the release of the film. On October 21, Sinha tweeted that the film had been completed.

SoundTrack

The soundtrack of Ra.One, release by T-Series on 12 September 2011, was composed by Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics penned by Atahar Panchi, Vishal Dadlani and Kumaar. Director Anubhav Sinha announced that R&B singer Akon would be recording two songs for the film whilst the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra would also be making a contribution. The makers of the film have complied with international copyright laws and have obtained the license to use Ben E. King's "Stand By Me", on which they have based the song "Dildaara". The album features fifteen tracks, including seven original songs, four remixes, three instrumentals and an international version of "Chammak Challo". Subsequently, the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film's soundtrack were released on 10 October 2011 featuring six tracks each.

Marketing (Pre-release revenue)

In March 2011, it was announced that the television broadcasting rights for Ra.One had been sold to Star India for a then-record sum of INR40 crore (US$8.92 million), surpassing the previous record set by 3 Idiots (2009) for INR33 crore (US$7.36 million). The film's music rights were bought by T-Series for INR15 crore (US$3.35 million) whilst the distribution rights were acquired by Eros Entertainment for INR77 crore (US$17.17 million). The distribution rights for the film in Tamil Nadu and Kerala were bagged by Abirami Ramanathan for a reportedly record, but undisclosed price. Ra.One set a new record for total pre-release revenue earned, netting INR132 crore (US$29.44 million) and surpassed the previous record held by 3 Idiots, which had netted INR85 crore (US$18.96 million).

Promotions

The producers of Ra.One set a record marketing budget of around INR52 crore (US$11.6 million), of which INR15 crore (US$3.35 million) was used for online promotion, making it the highest ever for a Bollywood film. Often described as the "longest promotion in Bollywood history", as well as "the most comprehensive and all-pervasive among people's lives", the term "promotional blitzkrieg" has often been used in connotation with the project's extensive marketing campaign.

Promotion of the film officially began as early as December 2010 when the first poster was published in all leading news papers across the country. The film's first look was later unveiled by Khan on his Twitter page on January 1, 2011. Several months later, director Anubhav Sinha announced that he would be launching two teaser trailers of the film during the 2011 Cricket World Cup, a prior nine months before the film's actual release date. Asked about why he was launching the film's trailer so early, Sinha commented, "Ra.One is not a Bollywood film that [the audiences] have seen before. The kind of size and magnitude that the film has requires it to be slowly introduced to the audience and that is the very purpose why we are starting the whole communication so early." The film's first theatrical trailer was released three months later to the public. As a way to promote the theatrical trailer, Khan was accompanied by the director on a five city tour, which included such places like Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore and Ahmedabad. During the same event, a 3600 ft long fan mail collecting audience wishes and messages for the film was also launched.

On 3 June 2011, the official website of the film was hacked by suspected Pakistani cyber criminals who stated that the act was a form of revenge to a similar attack on a Karachi press club website, three days after the launch of the page. They also left a note threatening the Indian Press Club, defacing the homepage. In early September, Red Chillies Entertainment (RCE) launched a sizeable viral marketing campaign for promoting the film more effectively in the online arena. The company launched the official customized Ra.One channel of the film on YouTube (a first for an Indian film) where several song and theatrical promos were released to the public, along with videos of the film's making, events and uncut footage. The channel also hosts games, including the first social game from India, and contests where participants can create promos from clips, music and dialogues of the film.

In addition to YouTube, Khan announced that the film would also subsidize through major brand ties-up worth over INR52 crore (US$11.6 million), some of which included the Formula One races, Nokia, Godrej Consumer Products, Coca-Cola, HCL, Horlicks, HomeShop18 and multiple live chats conducted on Google Plus for which Khan became the first Indian film personality to utilize. Three weeks before the film's release, a mass media campaign was launched by Western Union for international promotions. Encompassing platforms such as the radio, television, print media and outdoor advertising, it was launched in the U.S., Canada, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific as a way to connect with the millions of non-resident Indians across the world. Co-producers and distributors of the film, Eros International, released an official statement stating that along with RCE, they have recovered a major portion of their investments through in-film branding, media endorsements, and other music and satellite rights.

The look of the film's titular character, Ra.One, portrayed by Rampal, was heavily guarded and kept under strict wraps, with the entire filming unit required to keep mobile phones away from shooting locations, and signing non-disclosure agreements.[60] The first look of the character was initially scheduled to be revealed on the eve of Dussehra. According to the producers, the time was chosen to show the symbolism between Ra.One and the mythological villain Ravana (of the Ramayana), both of whom are supposedly "equally bad". Due to certain technical glitches, it was later revealed in the film's final theatrical trailer to a positive response.

Video Games

In July, Red Chillies Entertainment declared a tie-up with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) to build a full cycle game of the film on PlayStation. Released on October 5 at an event in Mumbai, "Ra.One - The Game" offers more than 20 game environments, features original voice-overs from the actors and is available on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3; the former being available for the Indian market and the latter for the international market. Khan volunteered to write the game script, dub for the game, and even oversaw the entire technical development. The project boasts of a series of firsts: a first full cycle PlayStation 3 blu-ray disc game developed with an Indian developer; first console game to be dubbed by a leading Bollywood actor and also the first Bollywood title to appear in a full cycle video game.

SCEE has invested around INR4.5 crore (US$1 million) to license the Ra.One IP and an additional INR3 crore (US$669,000) in the marketing and promotions of the game, which includes offline promotions and television advertisements of nearly 250 ad spots. At the time of its launch, 21,000 game consoles were sold and 100,000 units are expected to be sold across India alone. On October 14, a gaming tournament titled "The Ra.One Nvidia GeForce lan" was held in Mumbai. The event, which hosted over 1000 gamers competing against each other, featured several popular games such as FIFA, Counter-Strike and Call of Duty, and was telecast live on YouTube, showcasing digital innovation by means of live interactive contests, puzzles etc.

In addition to launching the video game, Red Chillies also collaborated with UTV Indiagames to design a social game based on the film named the Ra.One Genesis The game reached the No. 1 position on the iTunes store within 24 hours of its launch, becoming the first ever Bollywood movie app to be top-featured on iPhone and iPad. An investment of around INR4.5 crore (US$1 million), the storyline of the game is not borrowed from or similar to that of the movie though it is based on the character of G.One. The game was launched across platforms like mobiles, tablet PCs, the direct-to-home platform and social networking sites like Facebook. According to the company's digital and new media head Shailja Gupta, the idea behind the digital marketing is to create a franchisee for Ra.One. She explained, "Social gaming is just one part of the digit marketing strategy. The unique part of the social game is the integration of merchandise and gaming."

Merchandise and Comics

As a way to promote the film and increase its franchising business, Shahrukh Khan tied up with Seventymm to market a variety of merchandises related to the film. Products included original G.One tee shirts, coffee mugs, wrist bands, watches, mobile pouches, video cameras, as well as many other things. Similar products were also available for purchase on the official G.One online store, which was launched alongside the film's official website. In addition to this, a jewelery line inspired by the symbol of "Ra.One" as well as a series of HCL laptops with customized integrated Ra.One skin were also made available to the public. Moreover, Red Chillies Entertainment collaborated with UTV Indiagames to develop digital comics based on the film's characters. Written by Khan, the comic featured weekly episodes and served as a prequel to the events happening in the movie.

Release

During the period of October 24 - 26, Ra.One will have its international premieres in three cities: Dubai, London and Toronto, all of which were chosen keeping in mind their large international significance, as well as the presence of large South Asian populations.

The film's first international premiere will be held in Dubai on 24 October 2011 at the Grand Cinemas, Wafi, along with co-stars Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal, followed by a high-profile dinner and charity auction. The premiere is notable for being the first Indian film to sell tickets for its shows, as well as to have three simultaneous screenings for the event. The London premiere of the film is expected to take place at the O2 Cineworld the following day, while the Toronto premiere will take place at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on 26 October. Due to a conflict with Kapoor's scheduled appearance at Madame Tussauds, it was later announced that the actress would not be attending the film's premiere in Toronto.

Following up to its release, Ra.One is expected to set several records among Indian films for the volume of theatrical release in India and worldwide. Nationally, the film will release in 3,500 screens, breaking the record of Bodyguard (2011), which released in 2,700 screens. Overseas, it is currently expected to release in around 1,500 screens in 904 prints, with 600 screens in Germany, 300 screens in South Korea, 25 prints in Taiwan and New Zealand, 75 prints in Russia, 79 prints in the Middle East, 344 prints in USA, 51 prints in Australia, 202 prints in the UK and 49 prints in Canada. In case the partnership deal is successful, the film will also release in China with 1,000 prints. Moreover, Ra.One will release in 3D in 550 selected screens around the world. The film's release has also been noted for its wide use of digital prints, as an effort to bring down distribution costs, release the film to a wider audience and also reduce piracy. A week prior to its release, multiplex owners across India decided to allot the project with 95% of the total available screen space.

Censorship Ratings

On 14 October, Ra.One was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification to receive an official rating. Upon submitting the script, the Board showed strong objections to the film's action scenes as they felt that it would influence young children into emulating them. After much deliberation, the film was passed with a 'U' certificate without any cuts, but only under the condition that it would display prominent disclaimers stating that the stunts should not be imitated and were computer-generated.

Controversy

A week prior to the release, Ra.One was dragged to the Bombay High Court by television producer and writer Yash Patnaik in a dispute over copyright. According to Patnaik, the superhero played by Khan in the film resembled the hero in his concept, and had registered it with the Film Writers Association on December 26, 2006. He also argued that his hero's title was called One and that it had been copied by Khan in the title of the film. Patnaik sought an injunction on the release until he is given due credit, and has also sought 10% of the profits or INR25 crore (US$5.58 million) as damages if he is not given credit. The court, observing the prima facie evidence that there had been copyright violations, asked the filmmakers to deposit INR1 crore (US$223,000) on October 21, 2011 with the court before releasing the film.

Avatar

2009-12-27T09:31:00.005+05:30

Cast
Michelle Rodriguez ... Trudy Chacon
Sigourney Weaver ... Dr. Grace Augustine
Giovanni Ribisi ... Selfridge
Zoe Saldana ... Neytiri
Laz Alonso ... Tsu'Tey
Sam Worthington ... Jake Sully
Joel Moore ... Norm Spellman (as Joel David Moore)
Wes Studi ...
CCH Pounder ... Moha (as C.C.H. Pounder)
Stephen Lang ... Col. Quaritch
Matt Gerald ... Lyle Wainfleet
Peter Mensah ... Akwey
Julene Renee ... Med Tech #1
Dean Knowsley ... Pilot
Kevin Dorman ... Tractor operator
Sean Anthony Moran ... Fike
Dileep Rao ... Dr. Max Patel
Logan Pithyou ... Blast Technician (uncredited)
Grant Roa ... Bouncer (uncredited)
Woody Schultz ... Med Tech #2 (uncredited)

Crew
James Cameron ... Director
Jon Landau ... Producer
James Cameron ... Producer
James Horner ... Music Director
Mauro Fiore ... Cinematography
Stephen E. Rivkin ... Editor
John Refoua ... Editor
Janace Tashjian ... Associate Producer
Colin Wilson ... Executive Producer
Peter M. Tobyansen ... line producer
James Cameron ... written by
Brooke Breton ... co-producer
Josh McLaglen ... co-producer

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.
As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is "Avatar." And he did it almost from scratch.

There is no underlying novel or myth to generate his story. He certainly draws deeply on Westerns, going back to "The Vanishing American" and, in particular, "Dances With Wolves." And the American tragedy in Vietnam informs much of his story. But then all great stories build on the past ( "Avatar" premiered Thursday in London).

After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors' performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen. Yes, those eyes are no longer dead holes but big and expressive, almost dominating the wide and long alien faces.

The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet. "Titanic"-level business? That level may never be reached again, but Fox will see more than enough grosses worldwide to cover its bet on Cameron.

But let's cut to the chase: A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story (watch the trailer here).

The story takes place in 2154, three decades after a multinational corporation has established a mining colony on Pandora, a planet light years from Earth. A toxic environment and hostile natives -- one corporate apparatchik calls the locals "blue monkeys" -- forces the conglom to engage with Pandora by proxy. Humans dwell in oxygen-drenched cocoons but move out into mines or to confront the planet's hostile creatures in hugely fortified armor and robotics or -- as avatars.

The protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a disabled former Marine who takes his late twin brother's place in the avatar program, a sort of bone thrown to the scientific community by the corporation in hopes that the study of Pandora and its population might create a more peaceful planet.

Without any training, Jake suddenly must learn how to link his consciousness to an avatar, a remotely controlled biological body that mixes human DNA with that of the native population, the Na'vi. Since he is incautious and overly curious, he immediately rushes into the fresh air -- to a native -- to throw open Pandora's many boxes.

What a glory Cameron has created for Jake to romp in, all in a crisp 3D realism. It's every fairy tale about flying dragons, magic plants, weirdly hypnotic creepy-crawlies and feral dogs rolled up into a rain forest with a highly advanced spiritual design. It seems -- although the scientists led by Sigourney Weaver's top doc have barely scratched the surface -- a flow of energy ripples through the roots of trees and the spores of the plants, which the Na'vi know how to tap into.
The center of life is a holy tree where tribal memories and the wisdom of their ancestors is theirs for the asking. This is what the humans want to strip mine.

Jake manages to get taken in by one tribe where a powerful, Amazonian named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes him under her wing to teach him how to live in the forest, speak the language and honor the traditions of nature. Yes, they fall in love but Cameron has never been a sentimentalist: He makes it tough on his love birds.

They must overcome obstacles and learn each other's heart. The Na'vi have a saying, "I see you," which goes beyond the visual. It means I see into you and know your heart.
In his months with the Na'vi, Jake experiences their life as the "true world" and that inside his crippled body locked in a coffin-like transponding device, where he can control his avatar, is as the "dream." The switch to the other side is gradual for his body remains with the human colony while his consciousness is sometimes elsewhere.

He provides solid intelligence about the Na'vi defensive capabilities to Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the ramrod head of security for the mining consortium and the movie's villain. But as Jake comes to see things through Neytiri's eyes, he hopes to establish enough trust between the humans and the natives to negotiate a peace. But the corporation wants the land the Na'vi occupy for its valuable raw material so the Colonel sees no purpose in this.
The battle for Pandora occupies much of the final third of the film. The planet's animal life -- the creatures of the ground and air -- give battle along with the Na'vi, but they come up against projectiles, bombs and armor that seemingly will be their ruin.

As with everything in "Avatar," Cameron has coolly thought things through. With every visual tool he can muster, he takes viewers through the battle like a master tactician, demonstrating how every turn in the fight, every valiant death or cowardly act, changes its course. The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention (watch the "Avatar" video game trailer here).

In years of development and four years of production no detail in the pic is unimportant. Cameron's collaborators excel beginning with the actors. Whether in human shape or as natives, they all bring terrific vitality to their roles.

Mauro Fiore's cinematography is dazzling as it melts all the visual elements into a science-fiction whole. You believe in Pandora. Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg's design brings Cameron's screenplay to life with disarming ease.

James Horner's score never intrudes but subtly eggs the action on while the editing attributed to Cameron, Stephen Rivkin and John Refoua maintains a breathless pace that exhilarates rather than fatigues. Not a minute is wasted; there is no down time.

De Dana Dan

2009-12-27T09:19:00.004+05:30

Cast
Akshay Kumar
Katrina Kaif
Sunil Shetty
Paresh Rawal
Neha Dhupia
Sameera Reddy

Crew
Priyadarshan ... Director
Champak Jain ... Producer
Ratan Jain ... Producer

Hats and caps off to Priyadarshan. Just when we thought that comedy - stifled in Bollywood by the silly slapstick we’re served in the name of humour - is dead, shrouded, coffined and buried, Priyadarshan the saviour strikes form and resurrects it in his latest screwball sit-com De Dana Dan.
Unlike the rib-ticklers that are solely propped on the charm of either Akshay Kumar or Paresh Rawal, in ‘De Dana Dan’, the script and story is the hero. It’s a comedy of errors based on mistaken identities in a mad melee of oddball characters that cross paths inside a hotel in Singapore. The cobweb of confusion is created with such craft that gags keep flying and whizzing by endlessly - left, right, up, down…de dana dan! And you come out of the theatre with every cell of your body giggling with joy.

It’s all about money, honey! Nitin (Akshay Kumar) wants money to free himself from the clutches of his authoritarian maalkin (Archana Puran Singh) and marry his rich GF Anjali (Katrina Kaif). Ram (Sunil Shetty), a courier delivery boy, too wants money to marry Manpreet (Sameera Reddy), daughter of an industrialist. And Harbans Chadda (Paresh Rawal), a serial conman posing as a millionaire, wants to marry his good-for-nothing son (Chunkey Pandey) to any rich girl whose father is willing to open up coffers for dowry.

After their respective lives hit the rock bottom, Nitin and Ram decide to kidnap someone important (not telling who?) to make some easy millions as ransom. But the kidnapping goes wrong as the duo check into a hotel where preparations are underway for Manpreet’s wedding.

Add to this melee a number of screwballs like a testosterone-driven, middle-aged lecher (an appropriately cast Shakti Kapoor) desperately looking for sex, or a nit-wit cop (Sharat Saxena) looking for the conman, or a prostitute (Neha Dhupia) waiting for a client, or an assassin (Johnny Lever) who carries chloroform bottles, or a bumbling waiter (Rajpal Yadav) on the verge of losing his job, or a harried father (Tinnu Anand) out to find his runaway daughter (Katrina), or a local don (Asrani) with a dead body nobody’s willing to take.

It’s a mad, mad world out here in this Singapore hotel.

The best part about ‘De Dana Dan’ is that gags aren’t just mindlessly stitched together but flow out of situations that arise out of mistaken identities. Full credit should go to its crispy script laced with punchy dialogues from Jay Master and full credit to Priyadarshan for executing it with his masterly skill that makes the movie a hell of a rollercoaster ride, leaving the audience doubled up with laughs.

Yet again, Akshay brings a lovable goofiness to his character even though he’s locked inside a wardrobe for a substantial chunk of the second half. Sunil Shetty is okay while Paresh Rawal and Manoj Joshi bring the house down with their remarkable bonhomie. The ladies, Katrina, Sameera and Aditi Govitrikar (as the money hungry wife of Rawal) are more of eye candies, though Neha Dhupia does get to shoot off a few smutty dialogues. The supporting cast chips in with fine performances.

The movie’s pace slackens a bit with the song ‘Paisa’ which, though a hummable ditty, acts as a bump in this joyride. Also the flood in the climax doesn’t add as much to the humour as it could have.

These sores apart, ‘De Dana Dan’ is the best comedy of errors to have come out of Bollywood in a long time. Anyway, it’s much better than the comedy of terror we saw last week.

Go for it. It’s loaded with fun.

The Rocket Singh - Salesman Of The Year

2009-12-27T09:02:00.003+05:30

Cast
Ranbir Kapoor
Shazahn Padamsee
Sharon Prabhakar
Gauhar Khan

Crew
Shimit Amin ... Director
Jaideep Sahni ... Story/Writer

He won’t grease anybody’s palm to get a sales order for his company. He’s persuasive but doesn’t spiel to sell off goods. Worst of all, he’s honest and believes in doing things the right way. Harpreet Singh Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor) isn’t cut out to be a salesman. No wonder he gets the rap from his boss after he botches up a deal and is scoffed at by his colleagues who keep flying paper-rockets at him to remind him that he’s a loser.
After scraping through his college with minimal marks, Harpreet is determined to make his mark as a salesman. Working as a trainee in a company called AYS, which sells computers, he soon finds himself relegated to a corner, snubbed by his colleagues, insulted by his boss. Staring at the possibility of a ruined career, Harpreet stashes his honesty aside, and, while keeping his job as a trainee, secretly begins his own small company Rocket Sales Corp on the side, and ropes in co-workers from AYS and builds a customer base using the resources of AYS. Smart strategy, you would say. But then, Harpreet’s secret is exposed and time comes for him to pay the piper.
Coming from the director-writer-producer team of Shimit Amin-Jaideep Sahni-Aditya Chopra that gave us the cult movie Chak De India, Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year is an eminently watchable film that, however, falls a wee bit short of expectations. Granted that Shimit’s eye for details is as sharp as ever, and Jaideep’s writing (story, screenplay and dialogues) as steeped in reality as one could hope, but there’s something lacking. It’s hard to stomach the fact that people in AYS would risk their well-secured jobs for a rag-tag company run by a rookie who’s been branded a ZERO by his boss. Secondly, Jaideep Sahni ought to have given more depth and fire to Ranbir’s character. As a viewer you don’t feel the spark of the high-flying Sikh hitting pay dirt after convincing his clients with his mere honesty and willingness to take big risks.
The fuel of ‘Rocket Singh’ is its myriad characters that drive the story. There’s a porn-junkie computer engineer (enacted superbly) who sits cheek by jowl to Harpreet in the office and later helps him in Rocket Corp. There’s a feisty receptionist (Gauhar Khan) with a dream of rising to managerial position. There’s a street-smart team-leader who grills Harpreet but later joins him. There’s a sneering boss who’s interested only in sales figures and numbers rather than people. There’s a peon who’s tired of taking insults from his bosses. And, of course, aside from this melee is the newbie Shazahn Padamsee who gets only three scenes with Ranbir.
Ranbir Kapoor plays his part well but doesn’t modulate his voice much. Though his exterior, his body language (how he dances and adjusts his turban like a true-blue Sikh) is bang on, when he speaks, you almost hear a Sid or Prem talking. Prem Chopra, playing his father, is delightful in just a few scenes. But it’s the terrific performances by the supporting cast that makes ‘Rocket Singh’ what it is. It’s an almost perfect cast ensemble put together by Shimit, Jaideep and Aditya. The only three songs in the film (Salim-Sulaiman) play out in the background and cinematography by Vikash Nowlakha is a treat to the eyes.
Kudos to Shimit for the finesse with which he brings realism to a heart-warming story laced with wit and humour by Jaideep Sahni. But how one wishes the trajectory of this Rocket did not dip in the second half; and how the final message (that people are more important than numbers) did not feel shoved down our throats.
Rocket Singh’ is good, but it could have been much better.

3 Idiots

2009-12-27T08:56:00.003+05:30

Cast:
Amir Khan - Rannchoddas Shamaladas Chanchad
R Madhavan -Farhan Qureshi
Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi
Kareena Kapoor as Pia Sahastrabuddhe
Boman Irani as Viru Sahastrabuddhe (ViruS)
Mona Singh as Mona
Omi Vaidya as Chatur Ramalingam (Silencer)

Production
Development
Three Idiots is credited as "Based on a novel by Chetan Bhagat."The novel is Five Point Someone. While Bhagat was involved in the initial development, he was not involved in the creation of the screenplay due to conflicting schedules. Bhagat notes that 3 Idiots is different from his book but is none the less an enthusiastic supporter of the film.
Filming
The shoot of the film with the supporting characters began on 28 July 2008. Hirani and his team left in late August for the shoot with the principal cast. The film was shot in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ladakh and Shimla. Aamir and rest of the cast began shooting in early September. Hirani planned to wrap up the film by December. The first scene was shot in an aircraft with Madhavan. From Mumbai, the crew and cast comprising Aamir and Kareena went to Ladakh for a 20-day schedule.The shooting also took place at the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore for 33 days as a part of the second schedule of production.

Movie Review

Pants down and palms up! Give a high five to Rajkumar Hirani, whose formula of cocktailing entertainment with social messages has given us jaadu ki japphi and Gandhigiri in the past. His latest baby 3 Idiots isn’t exactly the cinematic ‘chamatkar’ it’s cracked up to be. It’s a frothy, feelgood, fun-filled, one-time-watch film that leaves you smiling but doubtful whether you wanna walk back in for another viewing.
Borrowing only scraps from Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’, Hirani and co-writer Abhijat Joshi churn out some delectable idiotgiri, laced with juvenile humour and tear-shedding moments. The only trouble is that the film’s core message is hammered out so many times that by the end it begins to lose its punch.
Salt water is a good conductor of electricity. Everyone’s read it, but Rancho (Aamir Khan) applied it on his ‘pissed-off’ senior to escape getting ragged on his very first day of the Imperial Engineering College. An Edison-in-the-making, he believes in striving for excellence rather than success, which, in fact, is the core message of the film.
But excellence can’t be had if you strive half-heartedly or fearfully or, worst, mechanically. Thereby come in three more characters - Farhan (Madhavan) who wants to be a wild life photographer but is doing engineering to fullfil his dad’s dream; Raju (Sharman Joshi), a poor lad who’s so afraid of failure that his fear has become a self-fulfilling prophecy; and Chatur (Omi) who’s a learning machine adept at mugging up books.
On top of them is the ever grimacing professor Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani), fondly called Virus, telling them that the world’s a rat race in which one has to step on another to get to the top. No wonder the ingenious Rancho is an oddball out in the herd. His questions perplex his professors. And his disdain for the education system that professes learning by rote makes him the arch foe of Virus. Sandwiched between the two foes is Virus’s doctor daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor) who falls for Rancho but has to face up to her eccentric pa at home.
Hirani and Joshi take this basic story, spin it on its head, and make it a tale of a quest of Farhan and Raju for their lost friend Rancho, who disappeared after topping the college. The writer duo packs in some fine humour and drama but overshoot the mark at some places. For instance, Chatur’s convocation speech in which the word ‘Chamatkar’ is replaced by ‘Balatkar’ is a gag stretched too long. And there’s too much butt baring and dropping of pants. And the screenplay too takes a circuitous route through a funeral and a wedding, both not essential to the plot.
Despite these foibles, ‘3 Idiots’ makes for an enjoyable watch, thanks to the bonhomie cracked up on screen by Aamir, Madhavan and Sharman. Aamir’s Rancho is a bouncy, fidgety genius with a golden heart. The 44-year-old actor almost passes off as a 22-year-old collegian, bringing out in his character the juvenile buoyancy and vivacity few actors of his age can. Madhavan and Sharman give ample support from the flanks, but a word of praise needs to be reserved for Sharman who shines equally in dramatic as well as funny scenes. Kareena, sadly, has been relegated to a corner but makes her presence felt in a few well-enacted sequences, but it’s Boman Irani who comes up with the best performance in the ensemble with his brilliant portrayal of an eccentric professor. His jawline protruded, his brows pursed, his gait ungainly, his speech lisped, Irani is every bit the vile and virulent Virus he’s supposed to be.
Shantanu Moitra’s music and Muralidharan’s cinematography complement the flick well. Rajkumar Hirani spins a yarn that despite a few botches has its heart in the right place. For this alone, ‘3 Idiots’ definitely ought to be seen and enjoyed.

Ghajini

2009-01-27T00:12:00.003+05:30

Starring

Aamir Khan.... Sanjay Singhania
Asin .... Kalpana
Jiah Khan .... Sunita

Director : A.R. Murugadoss

Music Album : Ghajini

If you can digest an overdose of physical violence, then Ghajini is a film you shouldn’t miss for Aamir Khan’s unforgettable performance.

It’s been years since I saw a Hindi film that had so few dialogues for the leading man. Quite unlikely for a masala movie about romance and revenge! Stoically, Aamir Khan walks and rips through the film with the charm of a Casanova and the beastliness of a vengeful man, and delivers a performance that will be remembered even though the movie itself may be forgotten after a few months.

‘Ghajini’is a film that ought to be seen for the sheer novelty of its theme. Inspired – and to some extent, lifted – from Hollywood’s ‘Memento’, it tells the story of a man who can’t remember anything beyond 15 minutes. He suffers from short term memory loss. But somehow he has found ways to remind himself of just one thing – that he has to find and kill the man whose name his murdered lover ( Asin ) whispered in his ear just moments before he too was hit on the head with an iron rod, never to fully recover his memory again. So, through tattoos and polaroids and notes he keeps reminding himself of just one aim – to find Ghajini, the killer whose face and whereabouts he neither knows, nor can remember.

As our amnesiac hero, Sanjay Singhania (Aamir), closes in on Ghajini and goes about bumping off one bad guy after another, we are given repeated flashbacks into his past life, when he fell in love with a struggling model Kalpana (Asin), an Indianized version of the French ‘Amelie’ who helps the poor and needy on the streets. It is this very quality of Kalpana that makes her the target of a gangster, who hunts her down and kills her.

Now, Sanjay, with his limited memory and eight pack abs, lives for one purpose – revenge. He is like a loose canon, a self-propelled torpedo that keeps veering off the course and leaves behind a trail of broken bones, wrung necks and pummeled jaws wherever he passes through.

And oh! I almost forgot. There’s also Sunita ( Jiah Khan ), a medical student interested in the case study of our amnesiac hero. She’s a frail collegian who hinders and helps Sanjay in his mission.

Director A.R. Murugadoss tells a long story at a brisk pace and shows no frugality in depicting violence in all its goriness. It is blood curdling stuff gruesomely glorified. Stuff that gives you the heebie-jeebies! It’s mostly hand-to-hand combat with frequent use of iron rods that serve the sole purpose as skull-crushers. Repulsive!

But if you have stomach for such revolting violence, you would enjoy sitting through ‘Ghajini’ for many reasons. First, it’s unique plot. Second, Aamir’s mind-blowing acting. Third, Asin’s confident debut in a heart-winning performance. Jiah Khan is appropriately cast in a role that doesn’t demand much from her. Pradeep Rawat, as the antagonist, is menacing.

There is a gaping hole that yawns right at the very base of Ghajini’s story. If a man can’t remember that his lover was killed or who killed her, why does he need to remind himself again and again to take revenge. Wouldn’t his vengeance wane away with his memory? Murugadoss should have established some internal link that keeps pushing the protagonist back to his mission – something like sporadic dreams or memory flashes.

Anyway, realism is something you shouldn’t expect from ‘Ghajini’. It’s a full-on masala film that is stylishly shot and has above average music by A R Rahman . It’s a film that needs to be enjoyed with mouthful of cola and fistful of popcorns even though the no-holds-barred violence keeps getting on your nerves. Despite its long duration of three-plus hours, the movie, with its quick pace, doesn’t weigh heavy, and leaves you with a mind out of time. Anterograde Amnesia, anyone?

Chandni Chowk To China

2009-01-27T00:09:00.001+05:30

Starring

Akshay Kumar .... Siddhu Sharma
Deepika Padukone .... Sakhi
Ranvir Shorey .... Chopstick
Mithun Chakraborty .... Dada

Music Album : Chandni Chowk To China

Here’s a chop-suey with desi tadka. Karate with some dhobi patak wrestling. But this cocktail called Chandni Chowk To China turns out to be utter mess.

Akshay Kumar can no longer be the saviour of no-brainer comedies that have become a sort of excuse for many directors to hide their incompetence behind. Making a good no-brainer requires brains. It requires a script in which humour is so potent that even if the story stretches beyond the point of its credibility, the gags still flow out of the situations in the plot, however implausible they may be. That is certainly not the case with ‘Chandni Chowk To China’, which is like an over-stewed chop-suey with burnt tadka.

The movie, mind you, is not an out-and-out comedy. It see-saws between being slapstick and weepy, and also has a generous smattering of ouch-ing tiger and hideous dragon.

So in the name of entertainment you have the tomfoolery of a goofy cook Sidhu (Akshay) who’s tired of his dreary existence of chopping vegetables everyday and being kicked about in his butt by his righteous, hard-working Dada ( Mithun Chakraborty ). Leaving Chandni Chowk, Sidhu goes to China after a bunch of Chinese men convince him that he is the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese warrior, even though Sidhu is told by a feng shastra expert ( Ranvir Shorey ) that he was a machchar (mosquito) in previous life. Little does Sidhu know that he’s taken to the other side of the Great Wall to fight and kill an evil and powerful ganglord Hojo (Gordon Liu).

In the name of drama, on the sidelines, there’s a dull, tortuously boring and weepy subplot of a Chinese cop separated from his twin daughters after losing his memory while fighting Hojo many years ago. The twins grow up to be Sakhi and Meow ( Deepika Padukone ). While Sakhi is a telemarketing model who uses a variety of gizmos, Meow does Hojo’s dirty work.

Initially beaten and battered by Hojo, how Sidhu takes his revenge is what the remaining movie is about.

Nikhil Advani , who made the super turkey Salaam-e-Ishq two years back, may not get a hit movie to his filmography this time around as well. Working with a tacky script that runs in many directions without going anywhere, Nikhil makes a complete hodgepodge of this mad-cap caper despite having a crowd-puller like Akshay at the helm. By the time the movie ends you sincerely wish it were the director and the writer who were at the receiving end of Mithun’s many kicks on Akshay’s bum.

As for the charmer, Akshay, himself, his goofy act is becoming a tad too predictable by now. After digesting his antics in Welcome and Singh Is Kinng , the audiences are already overfed. And he goes about doing the same in ‘Chandni Chowk To China’. He does make you laugh at times, but the humour doesn’t have the explosive effect that you expect from Akki.

Deepika Padukone catches your eye when she fights and hops like a monkey gone nuts, but she is insufferable as the sentimental Sakhi in search of her estranged family.

Gordon Liu has an arresting screen presence but a poorly etched role to match it. Ranvir Shorey is totally wasted in an inconsequential role. The moist-eyed Mithun Da oscillates between crying and hollering in the name of acting.

With its forgettable music, lowbrow performances and shoddy direction, ‘Chandni Chowk To China’ is like a trip you never wish to have made. Promoted as a no-brainer, this naan and noodle combination can seriously wreck a few wirings in your head if you watch it more than once.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-27T00:02:00.003+05:30

Starring

Dev Patel .... Jamal Malik
Anil Kapoor .... Prem Kumar
Irrfan Khan .... Police Inspector
Freida Pinto .... Latika

Question: How convincingly and credibly can a British director make a film that’s set right in the underbelly of aamchi Mumbai – with its slums and squalor – and yet tell a life-affirming, buoyant tale with a universal appeal?

Options: (a) Not a chance in hell. (b) It’s a fluke (c) He’s a cheat. Someone ghost-directed. (d) The guy deserves an Oscar.

Saving the answer for the last, let it be said at the outset that Slumdog Millionaire is a kind of movie that is made only once in a while. It requires more than just an accomplished director to tell a story that cuts through cultural barriers while still being rooted in the grime and crime of Mumbai’s netherworld that lies in the shade of the symbols of India Shining – the skyscrapers and malls. It takes more than just a good ensemble cast to make a film like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ work. Everything has to fall in place – the script, screenplay, direction, acting, music, editing – in sync with each other to have a movie as frisky, stark, shocking and uplifting as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It doesn’t happen often. May be it’s the stuff of destiny.

That’s also what the film’s story is about. An uneducated chaiwala ( Dev Patel ) at a call centre is on the verge of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’. How did he manage to answer all the questions correctly? Is he a cheat? Well, the show’s host ( Anil Kapoor ) and a local cop ( Irrfan Khan ) certainly think so. But may be he’s not. May be everything that happened in this slumdog’s life somehow conspired to bring him to the hot-seat of the television show where he would know almost all – if not all – the answers!

As we are given flashbacks into the life of the protagonist Jamaal (Dev Patel), we are taken into Mumbai’s underbelly where he grew as a kid with his elder brother Salim and a girl named Lathika.

Orphaned as kids, the three impoverished musketeers of this story have to survive the big bad world of Mumbai. It’s a world where goons take kids under their wing and gouge out their eyes to make them beg on the streets. It’s a world where orphaned girls end up in brothels or as some ganglord’s mistress. It’s a world where young teens take to theft and killing because there’s none but criminals to guide them. It’s a world that Jamaal grew in and out of, but his brother Salim and love Lathika could not.

Against the backdrop of this filth and squalor unfolds a beautiful love story, a story where a guy does the impossible just to find the girl he loves, and in the process wins a few millions as bonus.

Right from the opening reels, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ unspools at feverish pace as Simon Beaufoy’s superbly crafted screenplay – adapted from Vikas Swarup’s book ‘Q&A’ – takes us into the innards of a Mumbai slum. Unflinchingly, the movie mirrors some stark realities that few Indian filmmakers have dared to tell – the killing of Muslims by a rioting mob, the brothels that thrive in the by-lanes of Mumbai, the greedy and cold-blooded gangsters who maim and blind little kids, and the cops who torture the suspects in custody. Yet, against this shocking reality there’s something that jars. That’s the film’s English dialogues. Danny Boyle and Beaufoy have stuck to English, rather than Hindi dialogues for the most part of the film, despite the fact that you would hardly find an uneducated slumkid or a chaiwala in India who speaks English fluently. But why Boyle and Beaufoy did so is understandable. They were making a film for the international audience. If not for this cinematic liberty, the movie would not have cut across the cultural fault-lines as it does now.

The performances in the film are topnotch, right from the kids Ayush Khedekar (as the kid Jamaal) and Azharuddin Ismail (the kid Salim) to Dev Patel (grown up Jamaal) and Freida Pinto (Lathika). Patel, who gets maximum screentime, is quite a find. With conviction he switches from a vulnerable contestant in the hot seat to a confident guy who dodges the trap laid by the game show’s host and even puts all his money on the line on the final question, all for the sake of love.

Anil Kapoor as the deriding host, Irrfan Khan as the empathetic cop and Saurabh Shukla as the cussing constable deliver upto the mark.

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ would not have been the same without A R Rahman ’s gritty, grungy and extraordinary score that literally breathes life into the movie’s frames – be it ‘Paper Planes’ when the kid Jamaal and his brothers sell candies in train, or the raunchy ‘Ring Ring Ringa’ when the brothers (as teens) visit the red light area.

There are some brilliantly executed sequences in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ that prove Boyle’s mettle as a director. The kid Jamaal, locked in a makeshift toilet, jumps into a shit-hole just to get the autograph of his favourite filmstar. Or when the grown up brothers meet again on an under-construction building. Or the exhilarating finale when Jamaal doesn’t know the answer to the question that’s ironically the most personal to him. After all the suspense and drama, the movie leaves you in an ecstatic mood with Rahman’s ‘Jai Ho’ (a dash of Bollywood song and dance in the end) and sends you home with a bounce in your walk and smile on your face.

As for how good Boyle is in ‘Slumdog’, the answer is –

(d) The guy deserves an Oscar.

Raaz - The Mystery Continues

2009-01-26T23:56:00.001+05:30

Starring

Kangana Ranaut ....Nandita
Emraan Hashmi ....Prithvi
Adhyayan ....Yash

Music Album : Raaz - The Mystery Continues

A painter has haunting premonitions about a girl he’s never met. A girl whose hidden insecurities come to surface when she is faced with a deadly truth. And a lover who won’t let go of the woman he loves. A mysterious story unravels among these three characters in Raaz - The Mystery Continues .

The movie, a Vishesh Films presentation,

is not a sequel to Raaz but an entirely new suspense thriller directed by Mohit Suri .

Emraan Hashmi as Prithvi

A silent brooding artist who expresses all his feelings through what he paints. He has a unique gift that goes beyond his talent as a painter. He can see future. And now he sees Nandita’s future – fearsome and deadly. Can he save her soul?

Kangana Ranaut as Nandita.

She is a young, accomplished and independent model. She has found her life in Yash. Behind her self-confident façade lies a woman vulnerable to fear and insecurities. She is about to witness a terrifying struggle for survival. What will survive – she or her fear?

Adhyayan as Yash.

Yash is a charismatic and extremely ambitious man. A documentary filmmaker, he aims at dispelling and debunking religious superstitions and paranormal beliefs. His strong commitment to rationality and logic sometimes results in him challenging and taking a stand against existing age-old traditions and myths.

And yet when Nandita, who is closest to his heart, claims to be traumatized by supernatural occurrences, will his belief still hold true?

Synopsis:

A brooding artist Prithvi (Emraan) experiences mysterious and distressing visions about Nandita (Kangana), a woman he has never met, which he paints on a canvas. Intrigued by these visions, Prithvi tracks her down and warns her that these are not merely paintings of her, but accidents waiting to happen.

At first Nandita refuses to believe him and dismisses him as an eccentric stalker. However, the striking resemblance between Prithvi’s paintings and the near-death incidents in her life is hard to ignore.

Haunted by a series of deadly and paranormal experiences, her reason crumbles in the face of fear.

Now, one of Prithvi’s paintings has revealed her as dead. The only way she can change her fate is to unravel this mystery with his help, at the risk of alienating herself from her boyfriend, Yash (Adhyayan), a rational and logical man who refuses to believe in Prithvi’s premonitions.

Will Natasha risk her love and her life to unravel this mystery? Is there no escape? Are some mysteries better left unsolved, some secrets left uncovered, and some questions left unanswered?

‘Raaz – The Mystery Continues’ is produced by Mukesh Bhatt . The film is set to hit the theatres on January 23, 2009.

Rock On !!!

2008-09-14T07:43:00.003+05:30

‘Rock On’, as the name suggests, is based on a Rock band. The music draws its inspiration mainly from hard and raw rock. This particular genre remained untouched in Bollywood and for the first time something like this has been done.
The movie directed by Abhishek Kapoor has music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy.
The album is an experimental one with a fresh feel oozing out from the talented music directors accompanied with the master of words Javed Akhtar. Lyrics are wonderful especially in the song ‘Socha Hai’ and ‘Pichle Saat Dinon Mein’. The track ‘Socha Hai’ is a soulful rendition by Farhan Akhtar, stepping into the shoes of a singer for the first time.
‘Pichle Saat Din’ is again a solo by Farhan Akhtar. Now, it’s interesting to see that a first-time singer like Farhan has wielded microphone for four songs out of nine in the album. ‘Pichle Saat Din’ is a kind of college song with a good tune and impressive vocals.
The album has track ‘Sindbad’. It is a thematic song on Sindbad. Vocalists Farhan and Raman have done wonders with their vocals. A soothing number with complementary lyrics.
‘Zehreelay’ is the typical hard rock song. But as the genre of rock is particularly western, this hard core number fails to strike the right chord with not-so-supportive wordings. Suraj Jagan, the singer of the title track of ‘Johnny Gaddaar’, hollers on the top of his voice. The song is the weak point of this album.
‘Yeh Tumhari Meri Batein’ is a bit Bollywoodish kind of song with a touch of soft rock. Dominique Carejo has sung it effectively and captured the emotive appeal of the lyrics. A sensuous number, worth listening time to time.
‘Tum Ho Toh’ is a mellow number sung beautifully again by Farhan Akhtar. Director turned actor turned singer, Farhan has done a remarkable job of rendering the songs.
The title song ‘Rock On’ is a youthful track again crooned by Farhan Akhtar. His voice is well-suited to this song. This tells the story that why it’s a hit.
Another song which can score high is ‘Phir Dekhiye’ by Caralisa Monteiro. Her stylish and convincing vocals make this song a mesmerizing one. A track which is composed mainly on guitar, this number is a lovely one. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have done a good job with Javed Akhtar’s words.

Phoonk - The Black Magic

2008-09-14T07:32:00.004+05:30

Once again Ram Gopal Varma treads one of his favourite territories – horror. His movie Phoonk doesn’t spook you as much as it intrigues you with its black magic theme and its unexpected conclusion.
Not that the story’s conclusion is unconventional or novel. Rather, it’s somewhat hackneyed. But what surprises you is that a man like Varma would endorse such a climax to his story where superstition holds a sway over scientific logic.
Every frame of ‘Phoonk’ has an unmistakable Varma stamp over it. The dimly lit rooms, the uncanny characters, the lingering shots of props like toys or statues or even crows or cats, the camera angles and the background music – all mesh together to give an eerie look to the movie. However, after a while, it becomes a tad too repetitive.
The movie tells the story of Rajeev ( Sudeep ), a builder and a staunch atheist with a family comprising of a loving wife ( Amrita Khanvilkar ), two kids Raksha ( Ahsaas Chana ) and Rohan (Shrey), and a religious mother.
A non-believer in God or Devil, Rajiv’s world and his belief system goes topsy-turvy when an evil is let loose in his house and the most affected is his daughter Raksha who begins behaving in strange ways.
The doctors say Raksha suffers from “psycho dissassociative disorder” but offer no conclusive cure. Not long before it’s clear that a black magic spell has been cast on Rajeev’s family by some malicious ill-wishers. It’s a spell that only an exorcist can break.
Unlike any pulpy horror flick, ‘Phoonk’ doesn’t scare you with its gory details but by gradually building up your anticipation regarding what would unfold on the screen. Varma’s technical prowess does come handy to this effect but there are a couple of scenes where the filmmaker overindulges in this style.
However, Ramu does manage to extract good performances from the cast – particularly from Sudeep and Ahsaas Chana. Sudeep is convincing as a man whose mind is muddled because all his non-beliefs turn out wrong one by one. Ahsaas Chana is excellent as a child possessed by an evil spirit. Amrita Khanvilkar gives a restrained performance while Zakir Hussain (as exorcist) is a bit over the top.
All in all, ‘Phoonk’ is an average horror flick that shakes and stirs you at times but doesn’t blow you away.

1920 - A Love Made in Heaven A Revenge Born in Hell !!!

2008-09-14T07:23:00.004+05:30

Vikram Bhatt’s horror movie ‘1920’ doesn’t leave you zombied. But it does scare you enough to have a few sweaty, sleepless hours when you hit the bed at night.
The movie derives its title from the year it’s set in, when huge mansions (in present-day Yorkshire) stood tall on the suburbs of Mumbai and horse-drawn carriages plied on dusty grounds carrying dandy men in suits and women in Victorian gowns and hats. Sadly, there aren’t any buxom ladies in tight corsets here.
Rajneesh Duggal plays Arjun, an architect, and Adah Sharma plays his catholic wife, Lisa. The couple, wedded despite parental disapproval, arrives at a haveli that the suave architect plans to convert into a hotel as his big project. The only trouble is – the haveli is haunted by a spirit that eventually possesses Lisa. Even as the girl transforms from a beautiful bride to a withered zombie that talks in multiple voices and levitates in bed, the guy doesn’t run away but stands beside her, his love unshaken, until he finds a way to exorcise her of the demonic spirit.
Plotwise, ‘1920’ doesn’t offer anything remarkably novel or nightmarish. It abounds with clichés that collage any typical horror film – a large, empty and dimly-lit mansion with huge portraits staring down ominously at its audience. Or its rich architecture that glistens through the shifting shadows. Or a lantern-carrying housekeeper with mysterious facial expressions.
Despite this, the film works to an extent because Vikram Bhatt holds it tight until the very climax. The director lays the ground in the first half and shoots up the scare-quotient in the second half considerably enough for you to feel a full bladder mid-way through your carbonated drink.
The film also works because its actors, Rajneesh Duggal and Adah Sharma, deliver credible performances in aptly-suited roles. Adah’s blanched complexion particularly makes her well-suited to play a possessed girl. Raj Zutsi as the scowling priest is too stilted.
The music is quite evocative except the Rakhi Sawant number which stands out like a sore thumb in this sufficiently spooky tale.
Just don’t go expecting too much and there are chances that you might get some paisa-vasool scares.

A Wednesday !!

2008-09-14T07:13:00.002+05:30

Starring :

AT Cop : Aamir Bashir
Jimmy Shergill
Journalist : Deepal Shaw
Commissioner : Anupam Kher
Common Man : Naseeruddin Shah
Writer-director: Neeraj Pandey

An angry common man wages his war against the system in ‘A Wednesday’.
Now, here’s a flick that could make your day. It doesn’t send you home romping with joy and crooning sweet songs shot at scenic locales in some distant continent. A Wednesday has none of that Bollywood guck and gimmickry. What it does have is a riveting plot, directed skillfully and imaginatively by writer-director Neeraj Pandey. And it has wonderful performances by its two unglamorous but charismatic leading men – Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher .
‘A Wednesday’ is a film set right in our backyard, in Mumbai. And it talks about terrorism from a new angle. The antagonist in it doesn’t come with a stereotyped religious label. In fact, he has no label at all. He is a ‘common man’ who vents out his angst by taking on the system and trying to bring it down to its knees. Only an obdurate Police Commissioner can foil his mission.
Anupam Kher plays that top cop. On a fateful Wednesday he receives a call from a man who claims to have planted bombs in different parts of the city, set to go off at half-past six in the evening. The caller (Naseeruddin Shah, the great) describes self as a ‘common man’ and demands the release of four terrorists if the impending calamity has to be averted.
The threat sends the cops into overdrive as the Commissioner, with the help of an ATS commando ( Jimmy Shergill ) and a tough cop (Aamir Bashir) and a journalist ( Deepal Shaw ), tries to foil the common man’s uncommonly dangerous plan.
What’s most remarkable about the movie is that it keeps you gripped despite opening its cards at the very outset. Yes, you are told at the start what the end is going to be. What keeps you hooked is how the plot meanders through many unexpected twists and turns before reaching its predictable denouement.
Kudos to Neeraj Pandey and his technical team for putting together a neat, cohesive and engrossing film about a subject that’s beginning to feature more than often in Bollywood movies. But hats off to Naseer bhai for yet another memorable performance. To the every inch of his skin does Naseer bhai look the angst-ridden antagonist who takes up cudgels against the system in an extreme way. Anupam Kher manages to bring about a calculated balance of calm, control and panic in his performance.
Jimmy Shergill is much better than what we saw last of him. Aamir Bashir shows only flashes of good acting. Deepal Shaw is okay.
What’s not okay is the slightly preachy mode the movie slips into at the end. After all, the last thing we need at the end of the day is a lecture. This, and a few foibles apart, ‘A Wednesday’ makes for a paisa vasool watch.

Bachna Ae Haseeno.........

2008-08-24T09:44:00.004+05:30

Starring
Ranbir Kapoor ........ Raj Sharma

Deepika Padukone ...Gayatri

Bipasha Basu ............ Radhika

Minissha Lamba ....... Mahi

Director : Siddharth Anand

Producer : Aditya Chopra

Friends, it’s Independence for Yashraj Films from its jinxed series of sub-standard films that has by now dented the reputation of the elite production house known for telling its stories against the backdrop of nothing less than Swiss Alps or Sydney Harbour or even sarson ke khet in saada Punjab.
Not that Bachna Ae Haseeno doesn’t have all this. But before all this it has a sound, well-written script and superb performances by its cast. If only the film wasn’t that long. If only a song or two were chopped off from this 16-reeler. If only the second half was less predictable. If only the final reunion of the protagonist with his ladylove wasn’t that unromantic. Aaaah! All these damn ifs. They always come between the movie and the great entertaining experience it could have been.
‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ comes pretty close to being an engaging rom-com with a generous smattering of YRF’s in-house Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in the first romantic episode of its protagonist Raj, the (lady)-‘killer’ (as dubbed by his friends).
The Raj ( Ranbir Kapoor ) here is not Malhotra but Sharma and the girl is Mahi ( Minissha Lamba ), not Simran. The two meet on a train ride in Switzerland. Later she misses the train (obviously, yaar) and he accompanies her to Zurich on a…scootie (not a red convertible). Love blooms. And as it often happens in life, the guy screws it up. The girl flies back to Amritsar (where else) and he moves on with his life.
Year 2000. Raj works late nights in Mumbai and sleeps the mornings away on his stretchable sofa. That is until a barely clad bombshell Radhika ( Bipasha Basu ) moves next to his apartment and practices her dances to blaring music, robbing Raj of his sleep more because of her hot bod than the loud music. Raj’s charm works on her. She falls in love and soon marriage is on the cards. But Raj, being Raj, screws up again and flees to Sydney.
Time passes and Raj falls for Gayatri ( Deepika Padukone ) a cabbie in Sydney who’s clear about what she wants from life. And what she certainly doesn’t want is marriage. The trouble is – this time Raj falls in love and proposes her, only to get the taste of his own medicine.
Thereafter, our jilted but reformed hero goes on a repentance trip to mend his past mistakes by…well…much more than just apologies.
‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ works very well in the first half when the three romantic episodes unfold. My favourite was the one featuring Ranbir and Minissha. It’s a clever rehash of the situations from DDLJ incorporated into a different plot. Here too the guy eventually goes to Amritsar and makes himself a welcomed guest at a Punjabi wedding. But his intention is different. It’s not to win love, but to help Mahi rediscover love. This episode is my favourite also because of Minissha, whose performance is the best among the ladies in the film.
Bipasha Basu looks hot but her chemistry with Ranbir is thanda thanda…cool cool. Deepika Padukone is surprisingly confident and at ease in her performance. Kunal Kapoor is delightful in a guest appearance.
And lastly – coming to the ‘killer’ – Ranbir lives up to the Kapoor blood flowing in his veins. The guy has good looks and screen presence to carry the whole movie on his shoulders. Here’s truly a bundle of natural talent waiting to be explored.
Coming to director Siddharth Anand , it must be said that he shows a remarkable improvement since his last outing in the flop Tara Rum Pum . For starters, he rids ‘Bachna’ of any mawkish sentimentality that often peeves even the most flippant viewer no end. Secondly, he laces ‘Bachna’ with a liberal sprinkling of good humour – like the tearing down of the wall between Ranbir and Bipasha’s apartment to signify that they are entering a live-in relationship. The director does lose his grip on the film in the second half when the sub-plots (particularly the one with Bipasha) become taxing for a viewer.
All said, ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ is an eminently watchable film with its own share of glitches. The movie’s isn’t exceptional. But it’s definitely, definitely worth a watch.

Mission Istaanbul.....Daar ki aage JIT hain...

2008-07-27T16:07:00.002+05:30

Starring:

Zayed Khan .... Vikas Sagar
Vivek Oberoi .... Rizwan
Sunil Shetty .... Owais Husain
Shriya Saran .... Anjali
Director : Apoorva Lakhia
Producer : Sunil Shetty

Guys and gals! Please put your hands together to felicitate the one and only Apoorva Lakhia for making the worst film of the year so far – Mission Istanbul .
First of all, my sincere congratulations to the audience and the critic brethren who have survived this two hours of sheer stupidity, inanity and cinematic profanity. Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I feel battered and bruised, and my heart swells with sympathy for those who have already endured this torture and caution for those who are about to make the same mistake.
To put it mildly, ‘Mission Istanbul’ is the murder of cinema. It has such a cruelly contrived story that you wonder if the writers of the script are truly in touch with the real world. Guess what! Al Qaeda roams free in Kabul post the American invasion of Afghanistan and the public killings still take place in football stadiums under the rule of the new Afghan government. Not just this, Northern Alliance is still fighting its battle with Al Qaeda. I truly feared that Lakhia would next show Ahmed Shah Masood alive and kicking the sh*t out of Al Qaeda. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Welcome to the world of ‘Mission Istanbul’, where Turks speak fluent Hindi, and Arabic news channels work clandestinely as terror network.
At the center of the story is Vikas Sagar ( Zayed Khan ), a top class Indian journalist who takes up a job at Al Johara news channel in Istanbul much against the wishes of his journalist wife ( Shriya Saran ) back home.
Al Johara is a news channel that honours its slain journalists by putting their framed photos in its ‘hall of martyrs’. It is a channel that keeps its secret well hidden on the 13th floor, the entry to which is strictly prohibited.
Vikas goes on his first assignment with colleague Owais Husain ( Sunil Shetty ) to Afghanistan where Owais gets killed while fighting the terrorists. Upon his return, Vikas meets a stranger who tells him that Owais’ death was no coincidence and was preplanned by the channel itself. The stranger happens to be Rizwan Khan ( Vivek Oberoi ) a long-haired Turkish commando fighting his own personal war against the terrorists.
As Vikas digs deep into the secrets of Al Johara, he discovers a terror network working in the guise of a news channel. But it is a discovery that makes Vikas himself a target of the terrorists.
From thereon follows mindless action – heroes jumping off from buildings, dangling by flying choppers, chopping off the hands of the baddies and blowing up buildings.
Apoorva Lakhia’s style of filmmaking is to take stylish shots and put them in quick succession to each other and add the remaining impact by loud background music. He really needs to work as an assistant under some truly qualified director to get the basics right.
There are so many flaws in the film that one review may not suffice. But here are just a few examples. Zayed (as Vikas) lands in Istanbul, gets a short briefing from his boss who then announces ‘it’s time to party’. Enters Tanyeli, the flabby belly dancer. And our brave and much-married journalist on his big job in Istanbul decides to make merry with a tempting colleague (female, obviously).
Or check this out. Zayed and Sunil Shetty on their assignment to Afghanistan decide to switch over from journalists to soldiers and fight with the Al Qaeda terrorists to save the foreign hostages.
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.The performances by Zayed and Vivek are nothing to write home about. But yes, Vivek gets a role that is likely to evoke whistles from the front-benchers. Shriya Saran is totally wasted as a journalist who takes phone calls from her husband in between her live reporting. Mercy again.
The true hero of the film is the audience who brave sitting through it.
The best part about ‘Mission Istanbul’ are just two scenes showing the Bush-lookalike Brent Mendenhall who plays George W Bush aboard his Air Force One on his way to India. Brent steals the show with his superb dialogues like ‘we don’t interfere in other countries, unless, of course, we have to invade them’.
The movie deserves just half a star and that too because of Brent.

Kistmat Connection

2008-07-27T15:53:00.002+05:30

Starring

Shahid Kapur .... Raj Malhotra
Vidya Balan .... Priya
Juhi Chawla .... Haseena Banu Jaan
Om Puri .... Sanjeev Gill
Director : Aziz Mirza
Producer : Ramesh Taurani
Music Album : Kismat Konnection

It is the onscreen konnection between Shahid Kapur and Vidya Balan that saves this film from a doomed kismat.
Imagine a funny farce where the out-of-luck protagonist battles one misfortune after another until a girl enters his life as a lucky charm! Aziz Mirza’s film Kismat Konnection tells such a tale that is enjoyable in parts but has several dragging disconnections in between.
Set in Toronto, the flick has Shahid Kapur playing a struggling architect whose own life is out of structure because of his phooti kismat. The poor lad has to brave a barrage of misfortunes in doing even as mundane a thing as using an ATM card or rushing to office in his car. A defeated victim of endless misfortunes, he is told by a hamming crystal ball reader ( Juhi Chawla ) that a lucky charm is about to enter his life.
Enters Vidya Balan, a goodie-goodie gorgeous girl who makes things go right for our hero whenever she is around. The luckless architect feels he has found his lucky charm. But unlike other charms, he can’t keep her wrapped around his finger. He loves her. But then, he’s also ambitious.
Thereby begins that legendary divide between ambition and love that has spawned tomes of romantic stories both on paper and celluloid. The protagonist follows his ambition and manipulates love with a sweet lie. And when the lie is exposed, there’s heartache and that customary late realization that success is where love is. So is kismat.
‘Kismat Konnection’ begins quite well – funnily highlighting the blows of fate the hero has to survive in daily life. It plods when Juhi Chawla enters the scene and hams with no holds barred. It almost comes to a grinding halt when the subplots (like the passionless romantic track between Vidya and her cheating fiancé, or the track surrounding a couple of geriatrics fighting to keep their community home intact) swell out of proportion and overshadow the main plot, which is the bonding between Shahid and Vidya that begins with fighting, turns to friendship and blooms to love before being torn asunder when his hidden lies are exposed.
The plot-holes are far too many to overlook. The end of the movie has Shahid giving a preachy speech about global warming and selfishly profiteering business corporations to convince the board of directors that it is wise to let the old folks keep their community home where a mall is to be built. Sounds ludicrous? Wait, there’s more. In the end, the final twist of fate plays out when Boman Irani (in a guest appearance) takes the dais and set things right for our hero.
If the movie becomes watchable it’s because its humour works to an extent and also because of sparkling chemistry between Shahid and Vidya.
The two actors not just look good with each other but also play their parts wonderfully well. Shahid is particularly funny as the hapless, luckless, jobless and chickless guy trying hard to turn his bad kismat around. Vidya wins you over with her incredibly believable expressions of a girl falling in love with someone she didn’t expect to.
Om Puri is given a poorly etched role but the actor even breathes life into it, playing the character of a business tycoon and a henpecked husband. Juhi Chawla is simply over the top. Vishal Malhotra, as Shahid’s sidekick, is just about tolerable.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t have many songs and they come after long intervals. The cinematography is pretty average.
Aziz Mirza has the right story idea but he gets trapped and tangled in its telling. Too many subplots keep veering the movie off its main course. And whenever it happens, a viewer feels diskonnected.

Hastey Hastey !!!

2008-06-07T07:21:00.001+05:30

Starring:
Jimmy Shergill .... Neel
Nisha Rawal .... Maya Fernandez
Rajpal Yadav .... Sunny Malhotra
Musician : Anu Malik

It’s no laughing matter – to make a gripping romcom. Director Toony tries this in his light-hearted but mawkishly sentimental Hastey Hastey , but fails miserably.
The cheesy punchline ‘Follow Your Heart’ in the film’s posters is just an indication of what’s in store for you. Here’s a story that treats love like it was ten years behind the contemporary times. The tale has a cocktail of comedy, romance and scandal, but none has been dealt with convincingly by the writers. And with a shoddy story in the first place, no director can work miracles unless he happens to be someone with the caliber of a Speilberg, which Toony clearly is not.
The movie stars Jimmy Shergill with newcomers Nisha Rawal and Monishka Gupta.
Neel (Jimmy) is a brilliant student at Columbia University. His pedantic personality and his charming looks have Maya (Nisha), an upper-class Catholic-Indian girl, floored. It is a two-sided love which looks like headed to the altar until Neel’s career ambition gets the better of him.
Sunny (Rajpal Yadav) is Neel’s roommate and a close friend with an incurable inclination towards flirting with girls. Though he flirts, his heart beats only for one girl – a stunning blonde named Tina.
Neel and Maya’s love story is put in limbo when he travels to India to start a call centre. In this initiative he is helped by an enterprising Tanvi (Monishka) who has a crush on Neel. But when Neel rebuffs Tanvi’s advances, she plots revenge. She hatches a conspiracy and Neel finds himself stuck in a scam.
‘Hastey Hastey’ becomes somewhat watchable thanks to Jimmy Shergill and Rajpal Yadav . Though Jimmy’s performance appears half-hearted at places, overall he manages to carry the film on his shoulders. Rajpal Yadav chips in some light moments. Newbie Nisha Rawal and Monishka Gupta have great scope for improvement as far as acting is concerned.
At best, ‘Hastey Hastey’ is a mere timepass flick when you have nothing better to do with your time. There are two good-looking girls in love with a single man. There are sporadic funny moments, thanks to Rajpal Yadav in a triple role. To soothe your eyes there are pleasing shots of foreign locations aplenty, and there is some lilting music as well. But there is hardly any touching, engrossing development in the plot to win your heart.

Woodstock Villa

2008-06-07T07:15:00.003+05:30

Starring:

Sikander Kher .... Samir
Neha Oberoi .... Zara
Arbaaz Khan .... Jatin Kampani
Sanjay Dutt .... Special appearance
Director : Hansal Mehta
Producer : Sanjay Gupta
Music Album : Woodstock Villa

Hansal Mehta’s film ‘Woodstock Villa’ is an audio-visual assault on your senses. The movie is a tasteless slaughter of the film noir genre.
Producer Sanjay Gupta’s fixation with style over substance seems to have rubbed off on the otherwise talented Hansal Mehta who shows an over infatuation for stylish shot-composition and jarring background music to such degrees that it gives you headache by the end of ‘Woodstock Villa’. The entire film looks like an extended, elongated, stretched-out music video.
And if you thought the over-dramatic “vroom vroom” background sounds in the melodramatic TV soaps couldn’t get worse, you gotta watch ‘Woodstock Villa’ to know how a loud background score can ruin an entire movie.
The only saving grace of the film is newcomer Sikander Kher , who may not have the looks of a Greek god, but has an arresting presence, a charming persona, a deep voice, and – most importantly – a talent for acting.
The film tells the story of a jobless youth Samir (Sikander) who sleeps around with his ex-boss’s wife (which explains why he’s jobless). He lives in a rented apartment but can’t pay the rent and he owes money to a don who frequently gives him “tonic” (read thrashing) for not paying the dues.
At a discotheque, he falls for a stunner named Zara ( Neha Oberoi ), who makes him an unusual proposal to kidnap her because she wants to test her husband’s love. And the husband here happens to be a rich businessman, Jatin Kampani ( Arbaaz Khan ).
Hard-pressed with need for money, Samir laps the offer only to find himself in a mess after Zara dies in captivity. He buries the body, erases the evidence, and leaves the city. But then another surprise awaits him.
‘Woodstock Villa’ is one of those movies that try desperately hard to jolt you with repeated twists in the tale. But the way those twists unravel takes the punch out of the plot. For instance, the final twist, when the camera specifically focuses on a bag with money on two different occasions when it changes hands kills the suspense for a discerning viewer.
But the major hara-kiri that Mehta commits is his over-indulgence in the film’s audio-visual form. The hand-held jerky camera shots, the sudden zoom-ins and zoom-outs, the sepia tones, the deafening background score – that’s not what film noir is about. You can’t find a single continuous shot that lasts more than five seconds in this film. All this calls for skill and Mehta has it. But there is more to filmmaking than that. With its slick editing and ultra-imaginative camerawork, the movie tries to keep a step ahead of itself and never gives time for the story’s characters to gather roots, thereby robbing the plot of its emotive appeal.
To put it in other words, ‘Woodstock Villa’ is a vain and superficial work of cinema.
Thankfully, Sikander Kher is the silver lining in this dark enterprise. The guy has it in him to carry a movie on his sole shoulders. There are a few moments in the movie that show glimpses of his potential. It is a pity that ‘Woodstock Villa’ is his launchpad.
Neha Oberoi is eye-catching and manages her part without hamming. Arbaaz Khan has at last begun to act in the real sense of the word.
‘Woodstock Villa’ is a film that will appeal to those who are a sucker for style. Those who want substance should better steer clear of this movie.

Jannat----Finding Heaven on Earth !!

2008-05-23T12:39:00.002+05:30

Starring
Emraan Hashmi .... Arjun
Sonal Chauhan .... Zoya
Director : Kunal Deshmukh
Producer : Mukesh Bhatt
Musician : Pritam

Jannat’ is an engrossing, touching tale of an intuitively gifted bookie who loses his love in pursuit of his idea of heaven.
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, let me confess at the outset that I, being not a fond admirer of the game of cricket, had my apprehensions before watching the Vishesh Film’s latest presentation Jannat which was touted as a film on cricket match-fixing with ample incidents and characters from real life squeezed in the narrative to give the movie a semblance of realism.
Thankfully, I liked the film more than expected solely because it sticks to the rocky love story between the protagonist and his ladylove, while cricket and match-fixing forms just a backdrop against which this romantic tale unfolds.
Writer Vishesh Bhatt deserves a pat on his back for writing a simple story and providing it two distinct yet continually intersecting layers that eventually unite at the end with a dramatic climax. First-time director Kunal Deshmukh ought to be commended for his controlled and smooth handling of the subject and for giving the love story a tone of impending doom.
However, what mars ‘Jannat’ is the lack of sufficient development in the romantic track. After a while the story seems to go in circles. On top of it you don’t strongly relate to the emotional turmoil of the lead characters.
Arjun ( Emraan Hashmi ) comes from a middle-class family, but his dreams are big and he doesn’t mind taking the short route to riches regardless of morality, or the lack of it. He graduates from being a gambler to bookie, solely by the dint of his intuition to predict correctly. He falls in love at first sight with Zoya ( Sonal Chauhan ) and eventually goes on to win her heart, her trust, and her respect with his love and his riches. But when she comes know the source from where the riches come, she hands him over to the cops.
Arjun goes to jail and vows to reform himself – all for the sake of love. But then, one sight of jannat, one last temptation to fix a match, gets the better of his senses. And situations turn around so unexpectedly that he finds himself sinking just when he was about to come ashore.
Like all the Bhatt films, the story of ‘Jannat’ steers clear of the good-versus-bad formula. It is a subject in which both good and bad coexist inside the leading characters. There is no moral message, no sermonizing, but just the poignancy of a tragic love story.
Without doubt the man-of-the-movie trophy goes to Emraan Hashmi – the blue-eyed boy of the Bhatts – who gives a skillfully restrained performance, playing an ambitious man with shaky morals and firm equanimity in the face of success or failure.
Newcomer Sonal Chauhan catches your attention more because of her looks than acting. Samir Kochar is terrific in his role as an Indian cop in Cape Town, on the trail of bookies. Javed Sheikh brings an imposing demeanor to his character of a kingmaker don who takes Emraan under his wing.
The songs by Pritam may not be chartbusters, but they go along well with the mood of the film.

U Me Aur HUM !!!

2008-05-08T19:45:00.000+05:30

Ajay Devgan .... Ajay
Kajol ............ Pia
Divya Dutta .... Reena
Karan Khanna .... Vicky
Isha Sharvani .... Natasha
Sumeet Raghavan .... Nikhil

Director : Ajay Devgan
Musician : Vishal Bharadwaj

Music Album : U Me Aur Hum

Watching Ajay Devgan’s directorial debut ‘U Me Aur Hum’ is an emotionally stirring experience.

What’s up with Bollywood actors? One after the other they are proving to be better directors than those already in the business for years. After Aamir Khan , it is Ajay Devgan who stumps you with his finesse behind the camera (in front of it as well) in ‘U Me Aur Hum’, which is a moving, evocative, passionate, and painful tale told straight from the heart. Hats off to you, Devgan, for that.

Not only is the film rich in emotions, it is full of witty humour, thanks to intelligently and imaginatively written script, dialogues, and fine performances by the supporting cast.

‘U Me Aur Hum’ is a simple story told in a well-structured way.

A bespectacled, middle-aged father of a young teenager bets with his son to woo a woman sitting alone on a restaurant table. The man (Ajay Devgan), somewhere in his mid-forties, walks up to the lady ( Kajol ), as old as him, and strikes up a conversation. He tells her a story – a story of love at first sight between Ajay and Piya.

Ajay (Devgan) is aboard a cruise liner on an excursion trip with his two friends ( Karan Khanna and Sumeet Raghavan ) and their female companions ( Isha Sharvani and Divya Dutta ).

On a night of revelry, Ajay spots Piya (Kajol), who serves drinks in the bar. It is love at first sight for him. But she rebuffs his advances. He tries various ways to woo her. He breaks into her cabin and reads her personal diary, her ‘Book of Possibilities’. Being a psychiatrist he learns what she desires and then uses the right tricks to win her heart. Win it he does, but only to break it himself by telling her the truth. After some heartache the couple gets together again and gets married. Thereby begins the journey of U and Me.

As the protagonist says in the film – “Problems never cease. But they are never bigger than a person”. So is the marriage of Ajay and Piya hit by a calamity, a medical one. Will they pull it through and become Hum. Or will they drift apart.

Devgan follows a non-linear path to tell the story. Told almost in a flashback, the tale acquires wheels within wheels as the protagonist recounts the instances of his marital tragedy to his friends. And very imperceptibly, Devgan throws hints about Piya’s muddled mind from the start. The small ‘reminder’ notes pasted on the mirror of her cabin – to remind her of small tasks – when he breaks into it, or her forgetting the right time of her morning Salsa practice – they all point towards her impending fate. And you connect the dots as the story unfolds.

This is intelligent storytelling, supported by incredibly well-written, thought-provoking dialogues from Ashwani Dhir . Vishal Bharadwaj ’s music complements the story well, but the movie could have done without the song “Saheli Jaisa Saiyyan”. It seems deliberately squeezed in the narrative.

I have not yet seen Ajay Devgan act better in any other film. His performance, particularly in the second half, is arresting, when he looks to a ‘T’ a man struck by an unfortunate tragedy. He convincingly brings forth the pain, the dilemma, the inner turmoil and even the selfishness of his character.

Kajol fares pretty well, playing a complex character. She mostly keeps herself restrained but still goes over the top at places. But a commendable performance overall.

The two get solid support from Sumeet Raghavan and Divya Dutta who play an unhappily married couple, perpetually bickering about one thing or another. And there is also Karan Khanna and Isha Sharvani, playing happily unmarried couple. The best thing about all these characters is that they are well-etched and provide a lot of humour to the film.

Here is a sample – Divya and Sumeet are fighting furiously when a passerby asks: “Are you mad?”. Divya replies: “No, we are married.” Or when Karan riddles his friend: “What would be the name of a girl jo apne baap ko dhakka deti hai”. When no one is able to guess, he replies: “Pushpa…Push..Pa”.

See, it has that kind of humour.

To sum it up, ‘U Me Aur Hum’ is mostly a well-crafted film, barring a few rough edges that don’t stand out much. Above all, it is a touching, moving tale that will change something inside you and make you a better companion.

Don’t miss it.....

Tashan

2008-05-08T19:42:00.002+05:30

*ing:

Akshay Kumar .... Bachchan Pande
Saif Ali Khan .... Jimmy
Kareena Kapoor .... Pooja
Anil Kapoor .... Bhaiyyaji

Director : Vijay Krishna Acharya
Producer : Aditya Chopra

Music Album : Tashan

Once in a while comes a film that offers itself openly for slaughter by critics. Tashan is one such. Towered by a colourful cast comprising the ever-dependable Akshay Kumar , the super-svelte Kareena Kapoor , the mustachioed Saif Ali Khan and the scraggy Anil Kapoor , ‘Tashan’ is like a package that is beautifully wrapped to conceal its crappy content.

Butlet’s take the good things first.

Three reasons why ‘Tashan’ overcomes your urge to walk out of the theatre – 1) Akshay Kumar. 2) Funny dialogues. 3) Vishal Shekhar’s music.

These apart, there is hardly anything in the film that makes you feel that it is an ambitious project by country’s biggest production house (arguably), which apparently seems to have stamped its own foot on the axe once again after a couple of such blunders that we saw last year. Perhaps it is the YRF tashan.

But Apun Ka Tashan is different. It demands value entertainment for time and money spent. Money lost can still be forgotten and forgiven. But not time.

Mostly set in the dusty towns of India, ‘Tashan’ tells the story of four people, none of who trusts the other.

Bhaiyaji (Anil Kapoor) has graduated from being a local goon in the badlands of UP to a suited-booted don running a thriving extortion racket. But he hasn’t been able to graduate from his desi, rustic lingo. He wants to learn English and speak it like George W Bush does. Make no mistake, Bhaiyyaji will have his own “axis of evil” to battle.

The first pivot in this axis is Pooja Singh (Kareena Kapoor) who works for Bhaiyyaji but has other plans cooking up in her devious mind. She helps Bhaiyyaji find an English tutor whom she enamors and convinces to swindle a huge amount of money from Bhaiyyaji.

The English tutor, Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan), falls for Pooja’s charm while teaching Bhaiyyaji. To help her, he robs Bhaiyyaji and finds himself facing the barrel of Bhaiyyaji’s gun after Pooja runs away with all the loot.

Enter Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar), a countryside goon, expert at stealing electricity and recovering stolen or missing goods. He idolizes Bhaiyaaji and immediately takes the mission to find Pooja and bring all the loot back.

So Bachchan Pande and Jimmy Cliff hit the road to find Pooja. Find her they do. But the only problem is that Pooja has divided the money and hidden it in different parts of the country. Phew!

The remaining song and dance is about how they retrieve the money. In doing so they discover that their lives are strangely linked.

‘Tashan’ is undoubtedly high on style and attitude. The clothes, the makeover, the oomph quotient – and not to forget Miss Kapoor’s teeny-weeny bikini – they all gel together to make the movie eye-candy. The dialogues are full of funny lines lifted straight from the streets. But they do not form the part of a gripping, moving, progressing plot because there is none to speak of in the first place. The whole hoopla called ‘Tashan’ is about a long road trip and senseless action scenes. Imagine Bachchan Pande single-handedly taking on scores of black-cat commandos or decimating dozens of don’s men.

Akshay Kumar, however, turns out to be the saviour of ‘Tashan’. With one hand scratching his crotch and the other on the trigger of a gun, the actor delights you with his superb sense for comedy. Keeping an innocently straight face, Akshay delivers some ‘killer’ one-liners with such flair that he leaves you in splits.

‘The’ Anil Kapoor comes second in winning you over. His twisted English and his rustic manners stand in sharp contrast to his attire, and Anil portrays well the humour and the dread of his don.

Kareena Kapoor – may God bless her body – is alright in capturing the nuances of her character that bluffs without as much as a wink. She looks a clever fox to a ‘T’. And in the name of action, all she does is brandish shotguns that she seldom fires.

Saif Ali Khan is okay playing a Casanova but his character seems an appendage to the plot after a while. It is hard to figure out why Jimmy lugs around Bachchan and Pooja when he is no longer needed for the progression of the story. Pooja knows where the loot is hidden. Bachchan is there to recover it. But what is Jimmy doing? Flaunting his own tashan?

A few words need to be said about director Vijay Krishna Acharya (aka Victor) who has written Dhoom and Dhoom 2 for Yashraj Films . No doubt, Victor has got punchiest of dialogues in right places. But he has an utterly flimsy story to begin with. And Victor doesn’t have a unique style of directing. The cinematography by Anayanka Bose is a visual treat, and music by Vishal-Shekhar is superb. But Victor fails to yoke all the elements together into a riveting yarn. There are rough edges one too many. Take, for instance, Kareena Kapoor’s “Chhaliya” song in which she appears in a skimpy bikini, and right after the song she is clad head-to-toe immersing the ashes of his deceased father in the holy Ganges.

All in all, ‘Tashan’ is strictly a timepass film. It wouldn’t have been even that had it not been for Akshay.

To put it in the film’s parlance: “The I like Tashan of the Akshay”.

Race --- Either its with Cars or its the Race of Life?

2008-03-27T09:17:00.005+05:30

================================================================================================

Saif Ali Khan .... Ranvir Singh

Akshaye Khanna .... Rajeev Singh

Katrina Kaif .... Sophia

Bipasha Basu .... Sonia

Anil Kapoor .... Robert D’ Costa

Sameera Reddy .... Mini
Director : Abbas-Mastan

Musician : Pritam
Music Album : Race

================================================================================================

Subtlety and restraint have never found a place in the movies of director duo Abbas-Mastan . Their latest thriller ‘Race’ is so much crammed with unexpected twists and turns that after a while you naturally begin to expect the unexpected from the film.
And that is the trap that any suspense thriller can fall into. In a bid to shock the viewer, ‘Race’ keeps unraveling one surprise after another. So much so that after a while the surprises lose their shock value and the movie ceases to be a thriller.
This is the only major problem with ‘Race’. Apart from this the movie is a fine entertainer with pretty good action sequences and a superb performance from Akshaye Khanna. He is the man you would love to hate in the film.
Set in picturesque cities of Durban and Cape Town, ‘Race’ tells the story of two brothers – Ranvir Singh ( Saif Ali Khan ) and Rajeev Singh ( Akshaye Khanna ).
Ranvir, the eldest of the two, is a shrewd businessman who owns a ranch named Stallions where horses are bred for races. He is a fierce competitor and he doesn’t forgive anyone who double-crosses him.
Rajeev, on the other hand, is more interested in alcohol than family business. He likes to wake up to a glass of beer every morning to recover from the hangover of previous night’s drinks.
Sonia ( Bipasha Basu ), a fashion model, walks into Ranvir’s life and wins over his heart. On the other hand is Sophia ( Katrina Kaif ), Ranvir’s gorgeous secretary who is always vying to get his attention, but without any success.
The ball is set rolling when Rajeev falls for Sonia and promises his brother that he would quit drinking if she agrees to marry him. Ranvir, like any true-blue big brother, sacrifices his love and becomes a matchmaker between the two.
But beneath the surface, evil plans are taking shape in the minds of the protagonists. One of the two brothers will die. And the other will inherit the huge insurance claim of 100 million.
The murder takes place. Enters detective RD or Robert D’Costa ( Anil Kapoor ) and his pretty and dumb secretary Mini ( Sameera Reddy ) who try to crack the case and get to the bottom of the mystery.
‘Race’ has a riveting first half, when the characters are introduced and their murky sides revealed. The plot in this half leaves many open ends, to be connected and explained when the mystery is finally unraveled in the end. The movie reaches its high point when one of the brothers is pushed from the terrace of a high-rise building.
This momentum continues for some more reels in the second half. But then the film’s plot takes a serpentine route and passes through many unexpected bends, some of which are reasonable while some are deliberately contrived to surprise the viewer.
That is when Abbas-Mustan, the men in white, show their true ‘colours’. The director duo doesn’t care to be subtle. They pull out all the stops to squeeze in as many twists in the plot even when there wasn’t any need. As the plot meanders through its many turns, it begins to lose its credibility. And you resign yourself to the fact that anything could happen. Even the dead can resurrect. After all, it’s Easter time.
Akshaye Khanna deserves a special mention for a terrific performance in the film. He is the scene stealer. His pursed lips, his sarcastic smile, his raised brow and his funny demeanor make even the villainy of his character likeable. He plays the guy who has something funny to say even in the face of grave danger.
Saif Ali Khan is glum and uptight for most part of the movie (perhaps the requirement of his role). But you sense that his heart is not in playing his character. And he looks a little overweight in the action scenes when jumps from dizzy heights.
Katrina Kaif is incredibly good looking. But she is equally incredibly bad at acting. Bipasha Basu has more meat in her role (both figuratively and literally). But her role doesn’t put any great histrionic demand on her.
Anil Kapoor is becoming quite predictable playing the desi-guy-inside-foreign-suit kind of roles. Yet he adds some good humour by playing his fruit-munching detective. Sameera Reddy is required to look sexy and sound dumb. She does both convincingly.
Two more driving forces of ‘Race’ are Pritam’s music and Allan Amin’s stunts. The car accident at the very beginning of the flick has been choreographed superbly. However, the freefalls and giant leaps could have been better. You can notice the use of cables in a stunt when Saif jumps to save Bipasha from a killer.
Pritam’s music is loud and rocking and suits the mood of the film.
All in all, ‘Race’ is not a bad watch at all. Yes, it could have been much better if the director duo had incorporated more intelligent twists in the story.

Jumper : "A guy, who can teleport."

2008-03-07T12:28:00.003+05:30

The basic plot of Doug Liman's alternately dry and ridiculous new action thriller Jumper, and the film takes great pains to NOT introduce anything that might distract from that one paltry premise: One really uninteresting guy can teleport wherever he wants (including bank vaults, beaches, and the head of the Egyptian Sphinx) -- up until the day that a ferocious (but also ridiculous) villain shows up to ruin all the teleport-y fun. And then we get a half-decent chase, a bunch of hyper-kinetically edited action, and a sequel teaser. For a 90-minute flick that focuses on a guy who moves real quick, it sure doesn't move all that slick.

It’s impossible for outsiders to know who deserves most of the blame for this dud — its director, Doug Liman, its three screenwriters, its multiple producers or the various studio executives who might have done far too much meddling or not nearly enough. Whatever the case, “Jumper” — a barely coherent genre mishmash about a guy who transports himself across the globe at will — is of interest only because it revisits a theme that Mr. Liman has explored in films like “The Bourne Identity” and, if reports about his troubled productions are true, speaks to his own reputation as an escape artist: the character who wiggles out of trouble.

The trouble here starts when a likable high-school loser, David Rice (Max Thieriot), discovers that he can do an end run around the space-time continuum, teleporting from here to there faster than Dorothy can click her sparkling red shoes. Before long he’s zipping from Detroit to Tokyo (and into bank vaults) and has transformed into a materialist slacker (now played by a somnolent Hayden Christensen) whose rooms are filled with goodies and walls are papered with images of his fave jump spots. One minute he’s cruising a blond sylph in London; the next, he’s hanging with the Sphinx in Egypt. It’s all good, except that it’s all bad, from the subliterate dialogue to the chaotic direction and heavily edited points in between.

Then, you know, something happens. In this case, the something is mostly Samuel L. Jackson, who, as a mysterioso avenger, arrives barking his lines and wearing the latest addition to what has become a notorious collection of extreme hairpieces and looks. Snow white and close cropped, Mr. Jackson’s hair in this film dominates its every scene (it’s louder than the predictably voluble actor), rising out of the visual and narrative clutter like a beacon. It glows. It shouts. It entertains. (It earns its keep.) It also suggests that someone here has a sense of humor, as does the casting of the persuasively thuggish Michael Rooker (“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) and the woefully misused Diane Lane as David’s estranged parents.

Luckily for Ms. Lane, her character doesn’t get much screen time, largely because she appears to be on hand only to help humanize David, to counterbalance the brutal father with the sentimentalized mother. She’s as disposable as the pretty bland thing (Rachel Bilson) who tags along with David for a while and has been written into the screenplay for all the reasons female characters are usually written into male coming-of-age stories, namely she looks good in her underwear and establishes the hero’s heterosexuality. Ms. Bilson fills out her bra nicely, but is nowhere as seductive as Jamie Bell, who, as a British jumper called Griffin, gives the film a jolt of energy along with a heartbeat. When he jumps, so does the film.

Darling.......... hard too classify !!!

2008-02-29T19:02:00.002+05:30

Esha Deol ....... Gita Menon

Fardeen Khan .... Aditya Soman

Isha Koppikar ... Ashvini
Director : Ram Gopal Varma

Darling’ is not exactly a horror film. Besides the spooky angle, the movie has ample moments of light humour. But it is the unpredictability element in the story that makes the movie watchable.
It wasn’t with many expectations that I went to see this film. The horror of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag still haunts me. But Ramu, being a man who can even prove himself wrong, surprises yet again with this week’s release ‘Darling’.
It is hard to classify ‘Darling’ in any genre. It is neither a horror movie, nor a comedy nor a love triangle. Yet, in an eerie way, the movie is all of these. It has a comic track that begins in the first half and returns again in the second half. In between, there is an accidental murder followed by some spooky horror. Completing the pot-pourri is the customary song-and-dance, with Nisha Kothari adding the glamour quotient.
Fardeen Khan , Esha Deol and Isha Koppikar play the main characters in the story.
Aditya (Fardeen) is happily married to Ashwini (Isha Koppikar) and has a son from her. Yet, at his office he has a secret affair with his gorgeous secretary Geeta (Esha Deol).
Aditya lusts for Geeta and soon manages to bed her. As he enjoys the best of both worlds, Aditya maintains a fine balance between Ashwini and Geeta through well-crafted lies.
But then things go awry. He accidentally kills Geeta. And the unsatisfied lover returns as a ghost to haunt Aditya. Everywhere he goes, he finds her – underneath his office desk, and in his bedroom. And he is the only one who can see and hear her.
Ram Gopal Varma maintains an unpredictability factor throughout the film. The horror in the film isn’t gory or macabre. But yes, it does hit you at times, making your heart skip a beat now and then. And all credit for this should go to Esha Deol.
Esha really looks convincing in her part as the ghost of the dead mistress. Her brooding expressions, her steely glances and her ruffled hair give her an air of an apparition. She is superb in the sequence when she appears besides Fardeen and Isha in bedroom when they are about to make love.
Fardeen Khan acts well but his dialogue delivery is very mechanical. His diction is flat and has little modulation to express thoughts and emotions. Yet, Fardeen digs his teeth well into his complex character and brings out his many shades (from philandering to phobic).
Isha Koppikar is somewhat marginalized but she enacts her part of a middle-class wife with conviction.
The film’s music is pretty average. Tadap Tadap and Aa Khushi are the two songs that stand out. Varma doesn’t rely too heavily on background score to create a shocking effect. Rather he uses camera angles to build an eerie atmosphere on the screen.
‘Darling’ works because all its ingredients fall into right places.

Strangers

2008-02-17T17:06:00.003+05:30

Starring

Jimmy Shergill .... Rahul
Kay Kay Menon .... Sanjiv Rai
Sonali Kulkarni .... Nandini
Nandana Sen .... Preity

Inspiration from a Hollywood classic apart, director Aanand Rai’s film ‘Strangers’ is a fairly engrossing thriller with a riveting denouement.
Only in parts does the film remind of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers On A Train’. Mostly, Rai’s film chugs on a slightly different track and has a thrilling departure from the original after the two strangers in the story decide to become stranglers.
The movie follows a non-linear narrative approach – its story flits back and forth. In the very beginning the film catches you off-guard with the arrest of one of the protagonists for murder. From there on the story is developed at different reference points and the dots are connected in the last 30 minutes of this thriller.
Two strangers share their life-stories while traveling together on a train in England.
Sanjiv Rai ( Kay Kay Menon ) is a businessman and a frustrated husband who feels tethered to a depressed wife ( Sonali Kulkarni ) who keeps ruminating over the death of their only son. Rahul ( Jimmy Shergill ) is a failed writer whose marriage with his gorgeous wife ( Nandana Sen ) is on the rocks over the issue of having a baby.
Both the men are harried and tired of their wives and want to get rid of them. That is when one of them tosses an idea: they should kill each other’s wives. In this way the finger of suspicion would not point at them.
What follows from then on makes for an interesting watch.
Director Aanand Rai deserves credit for maintaining a tight grip over the movie’s pace and direction. ‘Strangers’ has a very Hollywoodish look, and a lion’s share of credit for this should go to the cinematographer (Manoj Gupta) and the editor (Sanjay Sankla).
Another good thing about the film is that its story is told in such a way that your interest does not wane throughout the film’s running time. The most gripping, rather riveting, are the last 30 minutes. The finale leaves you with your jaw dropped in surprise.
‘Strangers’ features good performances from its starcast. Kay Kay Menon, dependable as ever, brings about an interesting mix of suave and sinister in his character. Jimmy Shergill holds his place with flamboyance and maturity, playing a troubled and suspicious husband.
Nandana Sen looks gorgeous in a role that doesn’t put huge demands on her acting skills. Sonali Kulkarni has a small role but still she leaves an impression with her simmering intensity.
‘Strangers’ is one of those less-publicized films that catch you by surprise. In all likelihood, box-office will find few takers for this film. But if you are a lover of thrillers, you will enjoy the time and money spent on ‘Strangers’. Just don’t go expecting the moon.

Jodhaa Akbar

2008-02-16T00:10:00.004+05:30

Starring
Aishwarya Rai .... Jodha Bai
Hrithik Roshan .... Akbar
Kulbhushan Kharbanda .... Raja
Bharmal Sonu Sood .... Sujamal
Ila Arun .... Maham Anga
Director : Ashutosh Gowarikar
Lyricist : Javed Akhtar
Musician : A R Rahman
Music Album : Jodhaa Akbar

Jodhaa Akbar is a brilliant work of cinematic excellence. Period

Ashutosh Gowariker goes two more centuries back from his Lagaan era to deliver another magnificent masterpiece by weaving a gripping narrative around the Mughal Emperor Akbar and Rajput Princess Jodhaa. The beautifully recreated 15th Century period doesn’t give any scope at pointing fingers and perfectionist too might feel it pointless to debate on historical facts, especially when the final output is conveniently convincing and equally entertaining.
The film expectedly starts with the mandatory prologue in Amitabh Bachchan’s voiceover on India being intruded since the advent of 11th Century and the Mughals arriving in five hundred years later. Clearly the Mughal invaders are shown in a positive light since they settled in India. And thereon emerges the third generation Mughal Prince Jallaluddin Mohammad (Hrithik Roshan) who grows up as a ruthless warrior and brave ruler but simultaneously possessing a heart of gold and a clean conscience. Right from the outset his character is established in heroic conduct which doesn’t seek any transformation of sorts. So the story gets ample scope to focus on his love with Jodhaa.
The Mughals strategize war with neighbouring Rajput kingdoms whereby Rajput King Bharmal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) plans a peace treaty with Mughal by a marriage proposition of Jallaludin with his daughter Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai). The alliance initiates love between the two but war with the remainder Rajputs. Both at the audience’s advantage! That’s the simplest you could summarize the three-hour plus script.
Ashutosh has a skillful sense of vision and connects with the viewer with equivalent ease. The well-etched screenplay (co-written by Gowariker and Hyder Ali) maintains a perfect poise between historical relevance and contemporary entertainment. The film at no point becomes a lesson from history textbooks and at the same time doesn’t take prose liberty either. Special mention should be given to the meticulous effort put in by K P Saxena in penning dialogues in chaste Hindi and unblemished Urdu dialect that re-erect the bygone era and in unison is also easily assimilative to the current generation.
Right from the opening war sequence the film sets the ball rolling for an engrossing series of events to follow. Despite its long runtime, the film doesn’t drag at any instance and uses the blitzkrieg technique of nonstop bombardments of episodes in its narration. Hrithik’s taming of the elephant, swordfight with Aishwarya, dagger-combat in the climax and the magnanimously mounted battlefield sequences are some of the spectacularly executed scenes of this glorious effort. The minute detailing in Kiran Deohans’ cinematography, Nitin Desai’s production design, Neeta Lulla’s costumes, Ravi Dewan’s action and A R Rehman’s background score is superlative, to say the least.
On the flipside, the first 20 minutes of the second half tends to get a little slack with Akbar’s attempts at gelling with his junta. The love duet in the latter reels acts as a dampner. Sonu Sood’s death sequence turns out to be conveniently clichéd and the final fight is fashionably filmi.
With the entire movie revolving around Akbar, Hrithik has all in his favour and does complete justice to what he gets. One cannot think of a better Akbar as Hrithik effortlessly gets into his character, which the audience can easily identify with. Aishwarya appears as the ethereal beauty and does well. Sonu Sood has a conventional character but plays persuasively. Nikiten Dheer promises good potential. Ila Arun is impressive as the vicious foster-mother. But why does Poonam Sinha bear an accent? Other members of the cast are pretty convincing.
Aishwarya and Hrithik bring to life the splendid chemistry between Jodhaa and Akbar as it is delicately simmered amidst a political backdrop. While the romance doesn’t get mushy, the action doesn’t get too heavy. The film very smoothly switches genres from a war drama to a love story with no palpable jolts.
Everything is not just fair in ‘love and war’. It’s fabulous!

Alliens Vs Predator - Requiem

2008-02-05T13:40:00.000+05:30

Two Predators load several live Alien facehuggers and his dead comrade onto a ship, intending to return to the Predator homeworld. Unbeknown to him, the dead comrade was impregnated with an Alien before dying. The alien bursts from the corpse's chest, then quickly grows into a Predator-Alien hybrid (Tom Woodruff, Jr). The hybrid attacks the crew, killing them and forcing the ship to crash land in Gunnison, Colorado. Before one of the Predators is killed, he sends a distress call to the homeworld. His message is received by a Predator warrior (Ian Whyte) who immediately embarks on the journey to earth to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, the facehuggers escape from the crashed ship and impregnate a father and son hunting team (Kurt Max Runte and Liam James) and, later, two homeless men living in the sewer system.
Dallas (Steven Pasquale) returns to Gunnison after a stint in the state penitentiary. He is picked up at the bus station by Morales (John Ortiz); Dallas and Morales used to be partners in crime, but Morales is now the county's sheriff. Also arriving home is Kelly (Reiko Aylesworth), after a tour of duty in Iraq. Her husband, Tim (Sam Trammel) is overjoyed to see her, but their daughter, Molly (Ariel Gade), is unsure of how to react to her mother's return. She does, however, enjoy the night-vision goggles Kelly brought home as a souvenir. Meanwhile, Dallas's younger brother Ricky (Johnny Lewis), is beaten up by Dale (David Paetkau) and his friends. Ricky has been flirting with Dale's girlfriend, Jesse (Kristin Hager). The fight is the last straw and Jesse breaks things off with Dale. She invites Ricky to go skinny-dipping with her at the high school's pool later that night.
The Predator arrives and scavenges weapons from the downed vessel then destroys it. He uses an acid to destroy the corpses of the alien's current victims as well as the facehuggers he finds. When Deputy Ray stumbles upon the scene, the Predator kills him and skins his corpse. When Morales and Dallas find Ray's body, they realize that something horrible is stalking the town.
The Predator tracks the aliens to the city's sewer system. He dispatches several but is caught off-guard by the Pred-Alien. The Pred-Alien and other aliens escape into the city and begin to attack the citizens. The Predator follows one to the city's nuclear power station. In the ensuing battle, the station is damaged and the city loses power. Morales realizes that the entire county is in danger and orders the town evacuated. He also requests National Guard assistance. The Pred-Alien realizes he can use fertile women to create hordes of aliens without needing facehuggers. At the local hospital, it injects alien larvae into all of the pregnant mothers in the maternity ward. Within hours, a small army of aliens has been created.
At the high school, Ricky's swim date with Jesse is interrupted when Dale and his friends arrive and attack Ricky. Before they can drown him in the pool, an alien arrives and kills Dale's friends. Jesse, Ricky and Dale escape and find Morales and Dallas at the power station. They tell them what has happened, which Morales and Dallas largely confirm by visiting the school. They don't find any corpses, however, as the Predator has already been there to kill the alien and destroy the evidence. Morales, Dallas, Ricky, Jesse and Dale realize they need weapons to protect themselves and break into a local sporting goods store. They are joined by Kelly and Molly, who have been attracted by the flashing lights on Morales's squad car. Earlier, an alien had attacked their home, killing Tim.
Morales makes contact with the arriving National Guardsmen. All he hears, however, is the sound of them being slaughtered by the aliens. Then aliens appear in the sporting goods store. However, the Predator has followed them there and kills the aliens. Dale's face is melted off by alien acid blood but the others escape. They make their way to the scene of the Guardsmen slaughter. Kelly knows how to drive the tanks, so they all climb in. Morales contacts Col. Stevens (Robert Joy), who tells them to head to the center of town to be airlifted out of town. However, the plan is not to airlift anyone to safety but instead to use the townspeople as bait to draw the aliens to one area and then destroy everyone with a small nuclear bomb. Kelly realizes that they will all die if they do as Stevens tells them but Morales doesn't believe her. When they encounter a number of other people headed towards the center of town, Morales joins them; Kelly, Molly, Dallas, Ricky and Jesse head for the hospital, where they will use the med-evac helicopter to fly to safety.
The hospital is overrun with aliens, and the Predator arrives to destroy them. Making their way up the stairs, the humans run into the middle of a Predator-Alien battle. Jesse is impaled by the Predator's flying daggers. Enraged, Ricky attacks the Predator with a machine gun but before the Predator can kill him, the aliens knock it down an elevator shaft. Ricky is wounded but will live. The Predator leaves behind a pulse rifle, which Dallas picks up. They make their way to the roof, but aliens block their path to the helicopter. As Dallas uses the pulse rifle to hold off the aliens, Kelly gets the helicopter started. Just as the aliens are about to surround and kill Dallas, the Predator arrives and kills off the remaining aliens. Dallas boards the helicopter and they fly away as the Predator and Pred-Alien duel to the death.
At the center of town, the humans are surrounded by aliens. Looking up to the skies in hopes of seeing rescue helicopters, Morales instead sees a jet fighter drop a bomb; he realizes Kelly was right as the town and all of the remaining aliens are incinerated, including the Predator and Pred-Alien who are locked in each other's death grip. Kelly manages to pilot the helicopter to a fairly safe crash landing. They are surrounded by other Guardsmen who disarm them and provide medical care to Ricky. They confiscate the Predator pulse rifle from Dallas.
Col. Stevens takes the Predator pulse rifle to Ms. Yutani (Francoise Yip). She tells him that the earth is not ready for the technology it represents. Col. Stevens knows Yutani doesn't want the technology to use on earth.

'Dus Kahaniyaan' -An interesting medley

2008-01-10T22:15:00.000+05:30

Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ is an interesting, engrossing and entertaining watch. The movie is a rare experiment, comprising of ten different short stories by six directors.
The tales in ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ almost reminded me of short stories by O Henry. Though there is no Henry-esque humour in the film, every story has some coincidence, contrived circumstance, or a twist in the tale. And the best part is that every short film has been shot and presented realistically, lending a strong credibility to each tale.
It would be unpardonable to give away the stories in detail, so here are just the rough outlines of them.

Matrimony

One of the best short stories in the film, ‘Matrimony’ by Sanjay Gupta has Mandira Bedi playing a bored wife of a businessman ( Arbaaz Khan ). Secretly, she is having an affair with another man (Sudhanshu Pandey). The affair comes to an end when he has to leave the city. But before leaving he gives her a gift that coincidentally unravels a new, shocking secret to Mandira.

High On the Highway

This film by Hansal Mehta is slightly ambiguous as the doped minds of its protagonists – Jimmy Shergill and Masumeh Makhija , film students who like to get high and hit the highway. But their lives change on the fateful, farewell night after an incident on the highway.

Puranmaasi

Of the ten kahaniyaan, this short film by Meghna Gulzar is the best, solely because of its superb story. In a small village in Punjab, a mother ( Amrita Singh ) gladly conducts the engagement ceremony of her daughter ( Minissha Lamba ). As Amrita’s rude talking husband leaves to buy things in city, the daughter (Minissha) dresses her mother with her own engagement dress and choodiyan, just to see how Amrita looked as a bride. It is the night of the full moon, the night when someone from Amrita’s past comes calling on her doorstep.

Zahir

Except for the twist in the end, the story of ‘Zahir’ looks plain and dull. Manoj Bajpai , a struggling writer shifts in as the next-door neighbor of Dia Mirza . In no time the two become thick friends. He makes the first move and kisses her. She rebuffs and walks away. Then a disturbing truth about Dia comes to the fore. But there is another truth that is more shocking than this one.

Strangers in the Night

Beautifully shot, this short story by Sanjay Gupta is a tad disappointing. Neha Dhupia plays a wife telling one of her secrets to her husband Mahesh Manjrekar . This is a ritual the couple follow every year on their anniversary. The secret looks like a sexual episode from the wife’s past. But it is more than that.

Lovedale

This is the dullest short story in the medley. Neha Uberoi gets down a train following a mysterious woman and ends up at the house of Aftab Shivdasani , a painter living alone in a house in the hills. The two share many tender moments but then comes the time for her to leave.

Sex On The Beach

This one is a bizarre film by Apoorva Lakhia . Dino Morea finds a book on a beach and what he reads in it comes to life in reality. A sexy girl ( Tarina Patel ) walks up to him and puts forth the proposal of the three-letter word. But what turns out knocks the daylights out of Dino.

Rice Plate

Directed by Rohit Roy , this is one of the best short stories in the film. A devout Hindu woman ( Shabana Azmi ), who abhors Muslims, quarrels with a Muslim man in a railway canteen over a rice plate. It is an incident that changes her belief.

Gubbare

The appeal of this short film is more emotional than intellectual. After a petty squabble with her husband during a busride, the wife sits next to a peculiar stranger ( Nana Patekar ) with many balloons. The stranger tells her the balloons are for his wife who is cross with him. But a different reality unfolds when the stranger gets off the bus.

Rise and Fall

Old habits die hard. Sanjay Gupta shows his old penchant for making stylistic crime movies in this short film starring Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty as two gangster friends divided by power. It is also about two kids who came to the city and got sucked in the whirlpool of crime. It is literally about their rise and fall.
The appeal of ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ lies in the novelty of its concept. Almost all the stories are about ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances. Sanjay Gupta emerges the frontman with five stories directed by him, ‘Matrimony’ and ‘Gubbare’ the best of his lot. Meghna Gulzar and Rohit Roy share the second spot with their impressive films ‘Puranmaasi’ and ‘Rice Plate’. Hansal Mehta does a commendable job in ‘High on the Highway’, but he leaves a few questions unanswered. Apoorva Lakhia’s ‘Sex on the beach’ is spooky. Jasmeet Dhodi disappoints with ‘Lovedale’.
Among performances, the ones that stand out are by Amrita Singh, Nana Patekar, Shabana Azmi (if you ignore her contrived accent), Mandira Bedi, Jimmy Shergill, Manoj Bajpai and Dia Mirza. The rest, including Sanjay Dutt, are ordinary.
All in all, with the exception of a few dus kahaniyaan, the movie is definitely worth a watch.

Welcome ~ A comedy of errors

2008-01-10T22:10:00.000+05:30

StarringAkshay Kumar .... Rajiv

Katrina Kaif .... Sanjana

Paresh Rawal .... Dr. Ghungroo

Nana Patekar .... Uday Shetty

Anil Kapoor .... Majnubhai

Mallika Sherawat .... Ishika

Feroz Khan .... RDX
Director : Anees Bazmee

Producer : Firoze A. Nadiadwala

Exit from the hall at the end of the movie was the better part of watching ‘Welcome’, director Anees Bazmee’s latest comedy film. The movie falls way short of expectations.
Firstly, the film does gross injustice to an actor like Akshay Kumar , someone who has time and again proved his prowess at comedy. In the crowd of characters in the story, Akshay’s seedha saadha Rajiv gets lost somewhere. Not because Akshay is incapable of holding his own, but because the writers do not care to give more meat to him.
Secondly,the comedy in the film is so childish that I felt embarrassed watching most it. Please bear this sample: Katrina tries to make an April fool out of Akshay and pretends that she has lost her priceless necklace somewhere. Akshay spots the necklace next to a teddy dog alongside a pool. As he is about to pick the trinket, the stuffed dog lets out a bark, and scared Akshay falls into the pool while Katrina laughs at him and wins the April fool contest. Now, this was supposed to be funny. But it left me with my jaw dropped disappointedly.
There is not much to write about the film’s story. Rajiv (Akshay Kumar), a handsome, robust and eligible man has remained bachelor so long, thanks to his uncle Dr. Ghungroo ( Paresh Rawal ), who wants a bahu from a decent family in which no one has ever been to a police station.
But Rajiv falls for Sanjana ( Katrina Kaif ) without knowing that she is the younger sister of the biggest don in the city – Uday Shetty ( Nana Patekar ). And there is also Uday’s henchman Majnubhai ( Anil Kapoor ), a toughie who likes to hold people still at gunpoint and then paint their portraits. “Live Painting” is what he calls it.
While the two don bhais try to make the match between their sister Sanjana and Rajiv, there is a strong opposition from Rajiv’s uncle. So the two lovers decide to reform the dons. Following their plan, Ishika ( Mallika Sherawat ) enters the lives of Uday Shetty and Majnubhai. Expectedly, the two dons fall in love with the bimbo, and their crime business takes a backseat.
But then comes in the biggest don of them – RDX ( Feroz Khan ) to set things right.
Anees Bazmee pulls every possible string to make you laugh. But he fails to give the right strokes. He concentrates only on providing one hilarious sequence after another, but he completely ignores relating the sequences together. As a result, ‘Welcome’ ends up like a poor collage of comedy scenes, lifted shamelessly from Hollywood film ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’.
The saddest part in this purportedly humorous film is that Akshay Kumar has been denied the punchy lines and funny sequences he is best known for. The actor has been used like a prop in the huge cast ensemble. Still, he makes you grin ear-to-ear whenever his Rajiv blushes.
Rather, Nana Patekar’s role has more meat. And the actor does make you chuckle with his impulsive don who once aspired to be an actor. Anil Kapoor, too, is funny at times, playing a somewhat caricaturish Majnubhai. Paresh Rawal is just about okay.
Katrina Kaif looks terrific and hasn’t been burdened with scenes that require her to act. The same goes for Mallika Sherawat, who plays a bimbo without getting to flaunt what she is best known for. The two ladies, however, do add glamour to the film. Feroz Khan does the same for men.
The less spoken of the film’s music the better it is. With the exception of a Himesh Reshammiya track, the songs come and go like mandatory eyesores in this directionless film.
Anees Bazmee has done nothing but put several assorted funny sequences back-to-back in the name of directing this unoriginal movie. And he goes completely over the top in his attempt to make you laugh at the end of the film – in the dangling-house-on-a-cliff sequence, lifted straight from a Charlie Chaplin classic.
To see ‘the end’ of Bazmee’s film was a welcome relief for me. And when the movie’s after-effects faded away, I felt my sense of humour returning back.

Taare Zameen Par ! ~Every Child is Special ~~

2008-01-10T22:00:00.000+05:30

Director : Aamir Khan
Producer : Aamir Khan
Musician : Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Very rarely do you get to see such great films that touch your heart and make you a better person. Hats off to Aamir Khan for giving us an exceptional film. Exceptional, because it serves the higher purpose of art, cinema in this case.
‘Taare Zameen Par’ is about a little boy, or shall I say a little flower that has been nipped so many times in the bud that it begins to wilt. But then comes the gardener, the man who lets, and helps, the bud to flower fully.

Ishaan Awasthi ( Darsheel Safary ), an eight-year-old naughty kid is often scolded and scorned at by his teachers and parents for being poor in studies. Life and its joy begin to seep out of him under the burden of the expectations of his parents (his demanding father, in particular) and teachers.

Through the bars of his classroom window he often sees nature and life outside in its natural and free progression. He gets to taste this freedom for one single day when he bunks the school for not getting his test papers signed from his parents.

Punishment – much against Ishaan’s wish, his father sends him to a boarding school, where whatever little glimmer of life’s joy that remained in Ishaan begins to fade away. And he even turns his back to his passion for painting.

But then comes a new arts teacher in the boarding school. Ram Nikumbh (Aamir Khan) knows how to reach out to children and make the process of learning enjoyable for them. He spots the silent and brooding Ishaan in class and decides to help the boy.

The rest of the film is about how the shattered confidence of Ishaan is restored and how he overcomes his disabilities and how he even surpasses his teacher in his favourite passion – painting.

‘Taare Zameen Par’ is a film made with enormous sense and sensibility. The story by Amole Gupte never intends to arouse in you sympathy for kids with lesser abilities. Rather it gives examples of great personalities, scientists and artists, to drive home the point that even a dyslexic child has a great potential.

The film is full of amazing moments that will make your eyes well up. An angry, bleeding and helpless Ishaan runs to the terrace of his building after being beaten by other kids. Or when his father slaps him after finding out that he bunked from school. Or how Ishaan keeps running around the sports ground in silent anger and frustration when his parents visit him in the boarding school. Or how Ishaan tries to hide his face when his arts teacher spots him kneeling in punishment outside a classroom. The killer scene comes in the end when Ishaan’s talent gets recognition and everybody looks out for him but he sits fearfully hidden in a crowd of children.

Darsheel Safary is the real hero of the film. No two thoughts about it. Aamir Khan is the second fiddle.

It is incredibly difficult to make a child act. And how good a job Aamir has done as the director is apparent from the stunning performance he has extracted out of Darsheel. In my opinion, Darsheel’s performance is the best we have seen from any male actor this year in Bollywood, including the Khans and Bachchans. The range Darsheel brings about in his character – from notoriety to vulnerability, and from buoyancy to lifelessness – is truly the work of a genius. Writer Amole Gupte and Aamir Khan have found a diamond in Darsheel.

Aamir, the dependable Khan, is up to his credentials as an actor. But it is as the director that he scores. Aamir has handled the subject with great sensitivity. His cinema is not about style but substance. Without straying into the usual trappings of a regular Bollywood film and at the same time blending the superb songs by Shankar Ehsaan Loy smoothly in the narrative, Aamir keeps TZP focused solely on the story and its essence.

And what a story it is. Amole Gupte deserves no less credit for penning such a touching tale. It is a story that shows the helplessness of a kid who is not able to perform tasks that are beyond his abilities. It also shows the lack of understanding on part of teachers and parents while dealing with such kids. And, last but not the least, it is a story of hope. It is a story that not just touches you but also transforms you. That, for me, is the higher purpose of art. And that is precisely why ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is an exceptional film.

Jab We Met !!!

2007-12-22T21:58:00.000+05:30

StarringKareena Kapoor .... Geet

Shahid Kapur .... Aditya

Director : Imtiaz Ali

Imtiaz Ali’s movie ‘Jab We Met’ has all the trappings of a romantic entertainer.
The film doesn’t boast of a very unique story. What makes it interesting is the way it has been presented by Imtiaz Ali . ‘Jab We Met’ tells the story of two contrasting personalities who develop an affinity while traveling together through the heartland of north India. Ali makes sure that something new happens in every reel of the film to keep you glued to the screen. However, the film is not without some low points.
But first, the story:
Aditya ( Shahid Kapur ), a young industrialist, is dejected with life because his girlfriend left him for another man. Aimlessly he boards a train on which he meets Geet ( Kareena Kapoor ) a chatterbox who annoys him with her constant talking. So much so that he gets down the train to avoid her. She follows him there too. And the two end up missing the train.
Stranded on a platform, Geet, the sikhni, tells Aditya in clear words that he would now have to get her to her home in Bhatinda. Thereafter begins the journey of Aditya and Geet through the scenic villages and towns of North India. And once they reach Bhatinda, Geet’s family thinks Aditya is her boyfriend. Deep within, Aditya too begins to like Geet.
But Geet has other plans. She has a boyfriend with whom she plans to elope. Aditya accompanies her to Manali from where he heads back to revive his business back in Mumbai.
Is it the final goodbye for Geet and Aditya or are they destined to meet again? The end is predictable, but the way Imtiaz Ali brings the story to its obvious conclusion makes ‘Jab We Met’ worth a watch.
Though a predictable love story, ‘Jab We Met’ is different because most of it is set outdoors. The romantic moments between Shahid and Kareena tug a string at your heart. Complementing the mush is the lighthearted humour that the film has in ample doses. If anything was left, the film’s music completes the delectable cocktail.
There can be no two opinions that Shahid and Kareena are the driving forces of ‘Jab We Met’. Shahid’s performance is composed and restrained. He brings about a gradual transformation in his character, as his journey with Kareena gets closer to destination.
On the other hand, Kareena is absolutely uninhibited. With the exception of a few scenes when she goes over the top, Kareena plays her role with conviction and credibility. She does manage to sound and look like a sikhni from Bhatinda.
In marginal roles, Dara Singh and Pawan Malhotra are good.
To sum it up, ‘Jab We Met’ is not a path-breaking film. But it is a fairly enjoyable entertainer with a dash of drama in the second half. In fact, for a few reels in the second half, the movie loses its momentum.
What makes ‘Jab We Met’ watchable is the chemistry between Shahid and Kareena. It is ironic that they no longer share the same chemistry in real life.

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal ........

2007-12-22T21:55:00.001+05:30

StarringJohn Abraham .... Sunny
Arshad Warsi .... Shaan
Bipasha Basu .... Rumana
Boman Irani .... Tony
Director : Vivek Agnihotri
Musician : Pritam

As the team’s captain puts it: “It is not about football”.

Yes, Vivek Agnihotri’s film ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’ is about everything else except football. It is about racism towards south Asians in Britain, and it is about the rise of the underdogs.
The director never makes an attempt to penetrate into the game. Rather, he is so obsessed with the idea of projecting racism that he pitches the entire plot of the movie on it. Not a single gora in the film is shown as a friend of the Asians of the Southall community. John Abraham’s character Sunny, who plays for a team of whites (Aston), is repeatedly warned by his dad and a Southall coach that a bitter reality awaits him. That reality strikes home when John, despite being one of the best players, is dropped from the Aston team just because of his skin colour.
Dear Mr. Agnihotri, admitted that racism exists in the UK. But you show it in extremes in your movie.
Without beating about the bush let me come to the point. ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’ is a pretty average film with just a few good sequences that come too late to save the sinking ship.
The movie does remind you of Chak De India in parts – a coach with a sordid past, a ragtag team of underdogs, ego clashes within the team, and the penultimate rise of the minnows. But ‘Goal’ fails to do even half of what ‘CDI’ did. ‘Goal’ doesn’t evoke a sense of patriotism, it doesn’t stir your blood, and it only manages to provide you with some wishy-washy entertainment.
Shaan ( Arshad Warsi ) is the captain of the Southall football club, comprising of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi players. The club is only for namesake, its field being used for parties and weddings to earn the extra buck. There is no coach. The players are pot-bellied and flat-footed. No wonder, the club hasn’t won a tournament for decades.
Now, a bigger danger looms over the club. If they don’t pay their pending lease of the last seven years, the players risk losing the club to the greedy sharks who want to make money out of turning the place into a commercial complex. Their only hope is to win the Combined Counties Football League in England and save the club through the prize money of 3 million.
Shaan finds a new coach, Tony Singh ( Boman Irani ), for the team. In turn, Tony finds a new striker Sunny ( John Abraham ) who has been dropped from an English team because of his color. But Sunny and Shaan don’t like each other.
Aah…I almost forgot. There is also Shaan’s sister Rumana ( Bipasha Basu ) who has a soft corner for Sunny and joins the team as the physiotherapist.
As the underdogs of Southall pull up their socks and take on the field with renewed vigour, the club’s fortune begins to turn around. The end is predictable. The underdogs will eventually prevail, but not without crossing many a hurdle.
‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’ has flaws one too many. Firstly, the movie lacks genuine humour (except a few moments). Secondly, the racist angle is stretched beyond credibility. The angst of the South Asians towards the whites is understandable, but the director harps on it time and again, unwillingly making the coloured ones look no less racist. For instance, check out the tirade of John’s sidekick after John is dropped from an English team.
Director Vivek Agnihotri needs a lesson in subtlety. His idea of subtlety is Tony’s wife saying how beautiful different flowers look in a pot when Shaan complains about Sunny being too English to be a part of the Southall team. And how ‘subtle’ was Agnihotri’s idea of showing the face of Sunny’s dad on the stadium’s big viewer-screen so that coach Tony can recognize the old man as the same person who saved him from a racist attack many years ago.
As far as performances go, John Abraham shows slight improvement in his acting abilities. The guy with a killer smile not just displays his natural flair at football, he also manages to emote well in good many scenes. Arshad Warsi is dependable as usual. His histrionics are in place. But his frame comes across a tad too stout to make him look like a footballer.
Bipasha’s role doesn’t put any great demands on her. Boman Irani is just about okay.
‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’ does have a few engrossing and emotional moments, mostly in the second half. The music is pretty forgettable. The team’s anthem “Halla Bol” only arouses embarrassment for a viewer.
However, if you are a fan of either John Abraham or football, you will manage to sit through a viewing of ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’

Saawariya

2007-12-06T23:29:00.000+05:30

Ranbir Kapoor ....

Sonam Kapoor ....

Salman Khan .... Special appearance

Rani Mukherjee .... Special appearance

Director : Sanjay Leela Bhansali

From a bird’s eye view, the dream world of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya looks like a vague cubist painting, with houses in hues of blue and green. And it is a world where the sun doesn’t shine. Not at least in the course of the story.
Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story ‘White Nights’, ‘Saawariya’ is like a dark and surreal fable that enchants you with its visual beauty, but doesn’t touch you where it matters the most – heart. And the reason for this is that Sanjay Leela Bhansali gives more importance to creating the right ambience rather than capturing the essence of the story.
To put it briefly, the film’s beautiful form obliterates the inherent love and pathos in the story. And ‘Saawariya’ ends up as a unique study in the art of cinematography, but an average film that falls short of providing what it promised.
The anonymous town of ‘Saawariya’ is like a dream world where houses and buildings stand beside wide canals with gondolas rowing by. Ranbir Raj ( Ranbir Kapoor ) , an amateur singer, cycles in straight into a red light area and sings a song that brings some cheer to the prostitutes. That is his character. A smiling handsome lad with hair falling over his forehead, he brings smiles on the faces of those he meets. Among them is prostitute Gulab ( Rani Mukherjee ) who begins to like, even love, him in the course of the story.
But Ranbir is struck by love for a gravely dressed mysterious girl whom he meets atop a bridge. He tries to cheer up the sombre girl, but only manages to make a faint acquaintance of her. She is Sakina ( Sonam Kapoor ).
In his next meeting with Sakina, our besotted hero comes to know that she is waiting for someone, a man (Salman Khan) she loves, a man who promised to return on the night of Eid.
The story of ‘Saawariya’ is about the test of love, about the pain of unrequited feelings and about the women in waiting. Be it Ranbir’s landlady (Zohra Sehgal), be it Sakina’s blind mother or be it Sakina herself, everyone is waiting for someone.
The film could have been a cinematic masterpiece if Bhansali had focused more on developing the characters in depth rather than resorting heavily to their dramatic presentation. The silhouette of a veiled girl waiting on a bridge is appealing to the eye, but it doesn’t make your heart flinch.
Music, by Monty, could have been another strong point of the film. But there, too, is overkill. Too many songs and heavy background score dominate the story.
Among the newcomers, it is Ranbir who handles his role with confidence. Sonam, though undoubtedly gorgeous, seems ill at ease with her part. In one close-up shot just after her introduction, her face – supposed to express sadness – is completely bereft of emotion. In the second half, however, she manages to sink her teeth better into her character.
Ranbir performs much better for a debutant. He is the quintessential charming boy who keeps smiling and tripping and unexpectedly showing a gift of gab.
Salman Khan plays his usual self while Rani is partly impressive. It is Zohra Sehgal, the ‘now-stern-now-mellow’ landlady who wins your heart over. Alas, she is kept only on the margins.
Despite the flaws of ‘Saawariya’, Sanjay Leela Bhansali ought to be praised for his technical finesse and his sense of visual representation. The look of the movie will be a subject of discussions and debate for students of cinematography and art direction. And it is for this overwhelming visual appeal that I chose to give the film more than two stars. Otherwise, ‘Saawariya’ is a film with emotional moments few and far between.

Aja Nachle...

2007-12-06T23:19:00.000+05:30

Starring

Madhuri Dixit ....

Kunal Kapoor ....

Konkona Sen Sharma ....

Vinay Pathak ....

Jugal Hansraj ....

Director : Anil Mehta

Producer : Aditya Chopra

Music Album : Aaja Nachle

‘Aaja Nachle’ is a perfect example of how good actors can sometimes save a poor movie and make it watchable, at least once. The fault partly lies with the story, which is too damn plain and predictable. The script doesn’t even attempt to go into the finer points of the story. On top of it, the man with the megaphone, the director, Anil Mehta , fails to yoke together different elements of the story to create a unified, cohesive tale that not just entertains but also touches your heart. That, precisely, is the problem with ‘Aaja Nachle’.
Above all, the movie dashes the expectations that were had of a comeback vehicle of Madhuri Dixit . Not that she is to be blamed. She does full justice to the role she was given and proves that her dancing and acting skills have not waned during all the period she stayed away from films.
It is Madhuri and other actors of the film that make you sit through this elaborate musical, and at times boring, saga called ‘Aaja Nachle’.
Dia (Madhuri Dixit) returns from the US to be with her dying dance guru in his last moments. The man dies before she makes it to Shamli, the small town where she grew up, but he leaves for her a filmed message in which he urges her to revive the defunct dance academy Ajanta, the very school where Dia learned to dance, and to live.
A girl who eloped from Shamli with a foreigner and settled in the US, Dia doesn’t enjoy good reputation among the denizens of this small town.
Her dance school Ajanta is about to be razed down by people in powerful positions – an MP called Raja saheb ( Akshaye Khanna ) and a businessman named Faroukh ( Irrfan Khan ) – who want to build a shopping mall in the place of Ajanta.
Dia intends to resurrect Ajanta and bring back the culture of dance and theatre in Shamli. But for this she would have to win over the people of the town, which by no means is an easy task.
‘Aaja Nachle’ begins with a song after which no more than a few dialogues are spoken that another song follows. It is like an early warning that helps you brace up for the film. The story thankfully rises above this musical mire as several other characters are introduced.
Imran ( Kunal Kapoor ), a local ruffian who vandalizes the sets of Dia’s show, is literally handpicked by her to enact the lead part in her play. Anokhi ( Konkona Sen Sharma ), an uncouth girl with an ever-running nose and a crush on Imran, persists to get the part of the heroine. Mohan Sharma ( Ranvir Shorey ), a tea-stall owner nursing an old, unrequited love for Dia, decides to help her revive Ajanta. Mr. Chojar ( Vinay Pathak ), a respectable government servant, and Sanjeev Mehta ( Jugal Hansraj ), an insurance agent, also join Dia’s troupe.
Honestly, it is these characters and their idiosyncrasies that make the film somewhat interesting. If only a sound script had been there in the first place, ‘Aaja Nachle’ would have turned much better. Some of the sequences are so unimaginatively conceived: for instance, the scene where Dia convinces a local MLA (Akhilendra Mishra) to endorse Ajanta as the vote issue for the coming elections. Or the scene where the wife of Mr. Chojar vents out her pent up frustration. There are more such sequences in the story that are deliberately contrived to put across a point.
To their further convenience, the writers ( Aditya Chopra and Jaideep Sahni) and the director never make even a feeble attempt to go into the finer points of the story. For example, it is never shown how Dia manages to finance the lavish theatre production that she stages at the end.
The only thing worth watching in ‘Aaja Nachle’ is performances by the star cast. Be it Darshan Jariwala as Ajanta’s teacher, or Raghuvir Yadav as the academy’s old caretaker, the actors bring to life their characters.
Notwithstanding a few hints of ageing in her face, Madhuri Dixit just about manages to carry most part of the film on her shoulders. She is still beautiful, a terrific dancer and a competent actress. There is also a slight shade of accent in her Hindi, but that unwittingly suits her character in the film.
Konkona Sen is a killer when it comes to acting. She is a complete natural. So is Kunal Kapoor. He convincingly plays the toughie who softens up after heeding the call of love.
Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shorey are dependable as usual. Akshaye Khanna is a delightful surprise of the film. Irrfan Khan and Divya Dutta, too, get their moments at the fag end.
And last but not the least, the driving force of the film, its music, is another saving grace for ‘Aaja Nachle’. Songs like “Show Me Your Jalwa” and “Aaja Nachle” are the best of the lot. The medley of songs in the finale lifts the movie up and takes it to a crescendo.
Watch ‘Aaja Nachle’ for performances.

Om Shanti Om

2007-11-11T16:16:00.000+05:30

StarringShah Rukh Khan ...... Om Prakash Makhija / Om Kapoor

Deepika Padukone ................. Shantipriya / Sandy

Arjun Rampal ......................... Mukesh Mehra

Kiron Kher .............................. Bela Makhija

Shreyas Talpade .................... Pappu Master

Director : Farah Khan

Producer : Gauri Khan

Music Album : Om Shanti Om

Farah Khan’s film Om Shanti Om perfectly matches the festive spirit of the season. The movie is one of the best wholesome entertainers we have seen from Bollywood this year.
The best part about OSO is that it doesn’t pretend to be cerebral. Its humour, its corny sentimentality, and its music combine together to make a perfect recipe to drive your blues away.
On top of it are superb performances by the starcast helmed by the endearing Shah Rukh Khan who does the most corny things with such conviction that you end up liking them. Be it dressing like Rajnikant in the cowboy ‘Murugan’ avatar and fighting with a fluffy tiger. Or rescuing his ladylove from a raging fire and getting scorched above his butt.
To entertain the audiences, SRK doesn’t mind making himself the butt of a joke. And Farah Khan doesn’t mind going over the top if that brings a smile to your face. Yes, that is the intention of OSO – to entertain. And it succeeds in it in flying colours.
That the film is a hearty tribute to the cinema of 1970s becomes clear from its opening scene – Rishi Kapoor , all dressed in silver, dances to the song “Om Shanti Om” from Subhash Ghai’s film Karz . In the crowd is Om Prakash Makhija (SRK) one of the junior artists shooting for the song along with his sidekick Pappu Master ( Shreyas Talpade ).
Om has dreams in his eyes – dreams to become a superstar someday. And he is in love with popular actress Shantipriya ( Deepika Padukone ), to whose poster he often talks his heart out.
At home, Om’s mother ( Kiron Kher ) is sure her son’s dreams would come true one day. Well, they almost do.
Our smitten hero gets introduced to his ladylove through a series of remarkable incidences. Om’s love story seems headed in the right direction, but then, comes a revelation. There is another man in Shantipriya’s life and his intentions are not noble.
Without giving the story away, it can be safely said that Om and Shantipriya’s love story remains incomplete. It takes second birth and a new life for Om to finally settle the score with the man who took away his love.
‘Om Shanti Om’ is packed with one slammer of a scene after another throughout its running time. With its sheer joie de vivre, the film engages you and allows you no spare thought to pick plot-holes from a rational point of view.
The first half of the film is simply superb. The tongue-in-cheek spoofs on the superstars of the 70s – be it Manoj Kumar, Dev Anand or Dharmendra – are extremely funny. The chemistry between Om and his friend (Shreyas) has many charming moments. And it rends your heart to see how Om Makhija’s dreams are shattered and yet how he proves to be a true lover till his tragic end.
Lekin film abhi baaki hai, mere dost.
The second half doesn’t see much revival of the love story, but it does pack in a good dose of suspense and drama as the reincarnated Om Kapoor recalls his previous life in flashes and sets out to complete the story left incomplete in previous life.
In OSO, Shah Rukh Khan proves that he isn’t a superstar for nothing. His acting in the movie borders on a deliberate, filmi histrionic, in keeping with his character. SRK also proves his flair for comedy in many scenes – such as the cowboy Murugan sequence, or the opening song.
Deepika Padukone is very photogenic and she emotes well too. She has all the qualities of a superstar in the making.
In the side-roles, Shreyas Talpade and Kiron Kher are superb. But what is surprising is Arjun Rampal ’s brilliant portrayal of a cunning producer. Rampal is terrific in the film’s second half, when the ugly past catches up with his character.
Pakistani actor Javed Sheikh, as the reincarnated SRK’s father Rajesh Kapoor, is commendable. His performance is several notches better than what we saw of him in Namastey London .
Music by Vishal-Shekhar is another strong point of OSO. “Aankhon Mein Teri” plucks notes at your heartstrings. “Om Shanti Om” may have an average melody but the thirty celebrities in the song keep you glued to the screen.
Farah Khan has a very unique style of filmmaking. She follows no set formula and is not afraid to try anything and everything wacky just for the sole purpose of providing entertainment. She makes SRK dress up as a superman, as a dacoit, and as a gaudy cowboy. And she presents Akshay Kumar and Abhishek Bachchan in little cameos that will have you in splits.
Apart from the content, OSO is also a technically sound film. The cinematographer doesn’t try too many stylistic shot compositions but yet captures the gist of the story. The editing by Shirish Kunder is slick and tight. And the special effects – transposing Deepika Padukone with the likes of Sunil Dutt, Rajesh Khanna and Jitendra – are of super quality.
To put the curtains down, I wish to say that OSO delivers what it promises. It makes you laugh and makes you cry.
I came out of the theatre with a broad smile on my face. And ‘Om Shanti Om’ sounded like the perfect mantra of this Diwali for me. it was a movie involving love, passion and die hard determination. Thus it has been rightly commented by SRK" jab koi kisiko dil aur jaan se chahta hai to saare kainat uske saath deta hai............ " and the rest is history.
This movie is a must watch for all SRK fans not only for SRK and Deepika but for the storyline with a difference , the gaudy sets and above all the superb editing takinkg indian cinema through time travel to seventy's golden era.

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

2007-11-09T15:34:00.000+05:30

StarringRani Mukherjee ...... Natasha

Konkona Sen Sharma ........... Chutki

Abhishek Bachchan .............. Rohan

Kunal Kapoor ........................ Vivaan

Jaya Bachchan ...................... Sabitri

Anupam Kher ....................... Shivshankar Sahay
Director : Pradeep Sarkar

Producer : Aditya Chopra

‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’ is a sentimental, tear-jerking saga with good performances and a few glitches.

If you have got a taste for extended soap operas, you would find Pradeep Sarkar’s movie eminently watchable. The film is packed with emotions – both pleasant and turbulent. The protagonist at the centre of the story is a woman who sacrifices her own good for the better of her family.

No, it is not one of those regressive tales of self-sacrificing Bhartiya nari. Rather, the movie is a fairly well told, well crafted, visually rich, and quite credible story which you can easily empathize with. The only thing is – it is tad depressing. And the director takes a few liberties with the screenplay in the second half (at the fag end), making the entire story look like a farce.
The movie begins with a song (quite expected of a Yashraj presentation) on the banks of Ganga in Varanasi. We are introduced to two laughing, joyfully dancing girls – Badki ( Rani Mukherjee ) and Chutki ( Konkona Sen Sharma ), and their retired, pension-less father ( Anupam Kher ) and glum mother ( Jaya Bachchan ).

Their once palatial haveli is now in shambles, gradually collapsing due to lack of maintenance. While the father spends his money on lottery tickets (hoping for a stroke of good luck), the mother is apparently resigned to her fate. She grinds herself on a sewing machine to make ends meet for the family.

The family has no son, and that is the father’s regret. If only Badki had been Bada beta, the family would not have been bullied by the dopey uncle (Tinu Anand) and his muscle-flexing son (Sushant Singh) who are fighting a legal battle over the haveli’s possession.
The family finds itself pushed in financial crisis when the father’s health goes down. Badki, a silent witness to her mother’s constant struggle, decides to go to Mumbai to search for a job.
In Mumbai, Badki finds herself not qualified for any good job. To make matters worse, she is under increasing pressure to send some money home. Then, she gets an indecent proposal. What follows is her descent into a whirlpool from which there seems no escape, not even returning back home.
‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’ can be called a story of three women. Of course, the focus is primarily on Rani’s character, Konkona and Jaya Bachchan too have ample footage in the narrative.

With Badki’s financial contribution, Chutki (Konkona) does her MBA and comes to Mumbai to work in a marketing company where she meets Vivaan ( Kunal Kapoor ). The two eventually end up falling in love.
On the other hand, Jaya Bachchan is shown as a mute spectator to the household’s newfound prosperity from Badki’s blood money. Her conscience is not at peace, knowing well Badki’s sacrifice and fall from grace.

The Abhishek Bachchan track seems deliberately squeezed into the narrative. His entry and disappearance in the first half is sudden. His re-entry in the second half is too coincidental.
Rani’s performance in the film is at par with her set standard, but she offers nothing stellar. Konkona Sen, on the other hand, is simply superb. She is a natural. In fact, there is a scene in the film where she even towers over Rani. It is when she learns Rani’s truth and breaks down in front of her.

Jaya Bachchan is a master of her craft. She speaks with her expressions. Kunal Kapoor is a delight to watch. His character is lighthearted, and Kunal plays it with conviction. Abhishek Bachchan is okay. Anupam Kher is passable. Sushant Singh is good.
To sum it up, ‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’ is a fairly watchable film. Its story has an emotive appeal, its music is non-intrusive and cinematography is enchanting.

However, director Pradeep Sarkar falters at many places in between. Firstly, he does not develop Abhishek’s character enough. Even the bad guys – Sushant Singh and Tinu Anand – make fleeting appearances in the narrative. And then, at the film’s fag end, the director twists the proceedings to the story’s convenience as he hastily brings a happy ending to the otherwise sad story.

'Bhool Bhulaiyaa

2007-10-13T08:13:00.000+05:30

Akshay Kumar .... Dr. Aditya Shivastav

Vidya Balan .... Avni Chaturvedi

Shiney Ahuja .... Siddharth

Amisha Patel .... Radha

Paresh Rawal .... Batukshankar Upadhyay

Rajpal Yadav .... Chhote Pandit

Director : Priyadarshan

Malayalam movie ‘Manichitrathazhu’, of which ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ is a Hindi remake, you will like the suspense as well.
Priyadarshan slithers out of his usual style and comes up with an interesting but exhausting movie. ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ is not a typical Priyan comedy. It is a suspense thriller with doses of a horror film. The humour is understated, but sufficient enough to tickle the spine already chilled by spooky turns.
The combination of horror and comedy is a bizarre one. But it works well for ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’.
From the USA, Siddharth ( Shiney Ahuja ) returns to his hometown in India with his wife Avni ( Vidya Balan ). The couple get a resounding welcome from Siddharth’s extended family that includes his uncles Batukshankar Upadhyay ( Paresh Rawal ) and Badrinarayan Chaturvedi (Manoj Joshi). Also part of the household is Radha ( Amisha Patel ), the adopted daughter of the family who once harboured a secret love for Siddharth.
Tension builds up when Siddharth insists on staying in the family’s ancestral home, which is believed to be haunted. The family opposes Siddharth’s decision, but he has a rational mind. No matter what his uncles or other members of the family believe, he is adamant on staying in the ancestral mansion.
Thereafter begin a series of inexplicable incidents as they move into the mansion. Strange noises, mysterious sounds and eerie happenings convince Siddharth that something is amiss. He calls upon his friend Dr. Aditya ( Akshay Kumar ), a psychiatrist who takes the challenge of unraveling the mystery.
In all fairness, Akshay is the backbone of ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’. From the moment he steps into the frame, the movie gathers momentum. Before that, the first half drags. The actor’s comedy is simply impeccable. And his introduction, just before the first half, makes the wait worthwhile.
After Akshay it is Vidya Balan who impresses with her incredible performance. Vidya is in her elements again. And the last half hour of the movie solely belongs to her.
Shiney Ahuja is plain average. Amisha Patel manages not to ham. Paresh Rawal and Manoj Joshi are their usual impressive selves. Rajpal Yadav chips in a few slapstick moments with his portrayal of a pandit.
Priyadarshan gets many things right in ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’, but he stretches the story needlessly. The first half could surely have been chopped by a good 15 minutes. The second half holds your interest because of the shifting needle of suspicion.
The movie’s music is catchy and ear pleasing. The cinematography is fine.
All in all, ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ is an interesting maze with unexpected bends. The unraveling of the movie’s suspense is its high point.
Watch it for Akshay (even though he is hardly there in the first half).

The Train

2007-10-04T07:42:00.000+05:30

==================================
Emraan Hashmi .... Vishal

Geeta Basra .... Roma

Sayali Bhagat .... Anjali

==================================

The winding twists and turns in the plot of ‘The Train’ make it a good ride for passing your time.
Director duo Raksha Mistry and Hasnain Hyderabadwala seem obsessed with Hollywood. After rehashing ‘Collateral’ as ‘The Killer’, the duo now comes up with ‘The Train’, inspired from the Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston starrer ‘Derailed’. However, the directors have Indianized the plot by making their own additions and alterations at the movie’s fag end.
There is a very apparent attempt to cash in on Emraan Hashmi’s image as a serial kisser. Lip locks there are sufficient in the film. There is also a dash of glamour and exposure, thanks to the gorgeous and well-endowed Geeta Basra. Newcomer Sayali Bhagat, a former Miss India, leaves an impression because of her looks and not because of her acting.
‘The Train’ is a tale of love, lust, adultery, murder and deceit all rolled together into one. The story takes place in Bangkok, Thailand.
Vishal Dixit (Emraan Hashmi) is in an unhappy marriage with his wife Anjali (Sayali Bhagat). The two have a 5-yr-old daughter who is a diabetic. There is hardly any spark of love left between the married couple.On a train ride, Vishal bumps into a beautiful woman named Roma (Geeta Basra) who, like him, is also in a marriage of compromise. She is neglected by her husband (wonder what kind of a moron would neglect a woman like her).
Anyway, there is mutual attraction between Vishal and Roma. They indulge in a passionate extramarital affair. Just when they reach the point of crossing the forbidden line, a nightmare happens. There is a rape, followed by blackmailing and murder.
‘The Train’ begins as an ordinary tale of extramarital romance but it changes track with a twist that turns the life of the protagonist topsy-turvy. Thereafter, focus shifts to a blackmailer (Aseem Merchant), and the movie becomes a thriller with a twist in the tail.
Emraan Hashmi proves a dependable actor in ‘The Train’. He knows the art of not going over-the-top and shows control and restraint in enacting his character. He doesn’t look bad either.
Geeta Basra is beginning to show the making of a good actress. There are glimpses of refined histrionics in her performance. Sayali Bhagat doesn’t have many expressions. But she does look gorgeous.
On the sidelines, Aseem Merchant fails to rise above a mediocre performance. At times he tries to play a cool cat, but there is no conviction in his act.
Mithoon’s music is another strong point of the film. Songs like Woh Ajnabee and Beete Lamhe take to your lips easily. The cinematography is visually striking.
Director duo Raksha Mistry and Hasnain Hyderabadwala have made a fairly watchable rehash of ‘Derailed’.

Naqaab - The thriller

2007-10-04T07:32:00.000+05:30

To call ‘Naqaab’ ‘The Most Shocking Thriller Of The Year’ (as its tagline says) would be a gross overstatement. Without exaggeration, the movie can be described as an engaging romantic thriller revolving around characters with disguised intentions.
For years, director duo Abbas-Mastan have honed their skills of making thrillers through movies like Baazigar, Ajnabee and Humraaz . Their latest work, ‘Naqaab’ is nowhere near their previous thrillers in which suspense came out like a bolt from the blue.
In ‘Naqaab’, one part of the suspense is not hard to guess. But there are many twists and turns before the film’s climax. The unmasking of the secret is indeed unexpected, but it lacks enough conviction. If the movie’s plot has ample knots and tangles, it also has its holes.
To cut to the chase, ‘Naqaab’ isn’t exactly a nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat experience. It is a fairly decent thriller you wouldn’t mind watching once.
The movie brings together the ‘Humraaz’ team of Akshaye Khanna and Bobby Deol .
Bobby plays a millionaire, Karan, in love with a middle-class girl Sophie ( Urvashi Sharma ) who, despite her rich boyfriend, works in a burger joint. Enters Vicky (Akshaye Khanna), a struggling actor out of work. Vicky’s charm, charisma and eloquence wins the affection of Sophie. Sparks fly, and the two find getting drawn towards each other.
Hidden from all this, there is someone who is watching and filming the three characters.
As the love story gets more complex and contrived, hidden intentions of the characters are unmasked.
The first half of the movie is breezy but clichéd. Story picks up just before the interval and from there on it develops in the second half. There are surprising revelations and interesting bends in the plot. The director duo have tried to add the shock element with force, rather than wit. And there is too much beating around the bush before coming to the point in the climax.
Among performances, Akshaye Khanna’s stands out most prominently. His chemistry with Urvashi is superb. Bobby Deol manages his part well but offers nothing impressionable. Newcomer Urvashi Sharma acts as if she has the experience of many films behind her. She is comfortable and confident in playing her part before the camera.
The film’s cinematography is gripping and its editing is slick. Pritam’s music is passable.
Abbas-Mastan’s direction is tight and there are indeed sequences in the film that pump your adrenalin. But the director duo fail to create the hard-hitting impact in the second half, despite the twists and turns.
To sum it up, ‘Naqaab’ doesn’t turn out to be a riveting thriller, but it is engaging enough to be seen once.

Hey babby !!!

2007-10-04T07:30:00.000+05:30

The music score of Sajid Khan’s first full-length feature film (as director) ‘Heyy Babyy’ is yet another testimony to the talent and versatility of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
‘Heyy Babyy’ is essentially a feelgood comedy about three men and a baby. Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Vidya Balan comprise the film’s cast.
The title song Heyy Babyy is a moderately paced dance number with groovy beats. Despite an ordinary melody, the song has a very catchy bass line. And the singers, Pervez Quadir, Neeraj Sridhar, Raman and Loy, never try to infuse any superficial energy into their vocals. This, along with the song’s chorus, makes it an eminently hearable and danceable track. It would also turn out to be an eye-candy track in the film as it features as many as 20 actresses.
DJ Whosane infuses some extra zing into this number in the Big 'O' Remix version, which is high on tempo and spunk.
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy step into a different mould altogether in the rustic Dholna – a very simple composition with a delectable blend of tabla, dhapli, harmonium and guitar. On top of it Sherya Ghoshal’s soothing voice, coupled with Sonu Nigam’s evocative vocals, lend a subtle and unassuming appeal to this song.
DJ Whosane again gives a different twist to this track in Dholna - Love is in the Air Remix. Without altering the tempo much, Whosane embellishes the track with a sprinkling of piano notes and hip-hop sounds.
Jaane Bhi De has a rhythmic feel but a mediocre melody. The song’s lyrics convey a feeling of taking things easy. Sample this: Gustakhi maaf kar de, Ab to insaaf kar de, Apna dil saaf kar de…Kehna toh maan le…Jaane bhi de, Jo bhi hua, Jaane bhi de. Shankar Mahadevan’s soft but vivacious singing brings a breeziness into this otherwise passable track.
Jaane Bhi De – Hip hop Hiccup Remix has more hiccups than hip-shaking hops.
Temperature rises with Mast Kalandar, originally a traditional song paying ode to the 13th century Sufi master Lal Shahbaaz Kalandar (literally translated as Red Falcon). The song, sung by Salim Shehzada, Rehan Khan and Shankar Mahadevan, is a high-energy, powerful number that sets your blood rushing and feet tapping.
Australian ‘Girl Band’ gives a peppy flavour to the title song Heyy Babyy in its English version. The quartet, comprising of singers Renee Bargh, Renee Armstrong, Jessica Smith and Patrice Tipoki, bring a buoyant feel to this techno-savvy version of the title track.
And then comes the best song of the album – Meri Duniya Tu Hi Re. The lyrics of the song are not directed towards a lover but towards a kid. The song has a lilting, soothing and sentimental melody. Singers Sonu Nigam, Shaan and Shankar further bring tenderness into the number with their gentle singing.
All in all, the music score of ‘Heyy Babyy’ may not be of chart-busting standards, but it has a few songs that remain with you even after a single hearing. Songs like Meri Duniya, Heyy Babyy and Dholna fall into this lot.

Chakde India Chakde !!!

2007-08-27T23:31:00.000+05:30

Chak De India’ is a beautifully made film that makes you laugh, makes you cry, gives you goose bumps, and stirs up patriotism inside you. It is a film that every lover of good cinema must watch.
It is heartening to see Yashraj Films move away from their stereotypical mushy romances and sentimental family dramas. Sports, in itself, is not a popular genre in Bollywood. On top of it, ‘Chak De India’ has no love angle even though it has Shah Rukh Khan playing the leading man alongside 16 new girls. Despite so many odds, ‘Chak De India’ turns out to be a riveting film. Reason – excellent writing (by Jaideep Sahni), well etched-out characters, brilliant performances (by Shah Rukh, Shilpa Shukla, Sagarika Ghatge and Chitrashi Rawat) and, last but not the least, superb direction by Shimit Amin .
I cannot recall a single dull moment in the film. From the word go, the movie grips you like a vice and keeps you riveted until the end credits roll. During this ‘Chak De’ ride, you go through myriad emotions. You empathize with the pain of the protagonist, cherish the clashes and camaraderie of the girls, and you are filled with an uplifting, charged-up feeling as you see the underdogs rise to the occasion.
To cut to the chase, ‘Chak De India’ keeps you on the edge of your seat, even though it is a sports-based film and not a thriller.
The film’s story is simple and yet it carries so many undercurrents.
Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh), the best centre-forward in Indian hockey team, misses the crucial, last-minute penalty stroke against Pakistan and is blamed for the Indian team’s defeat in the finals. So much so, he is labeled gaddar (betrayer) by his own fellow countrymen. Disgraced and dishonored for one momentary failure, Kabir Khan leaves his parental house with his mother and disappears into oblivion.
Seven years later he appears again, not as a player but as a coach of a bunch of girls in whom even the Hockey Federation has no confidence. Kabir Khan has just three months to coach and train these girls for the Hockey World Cup in Australia.
The girls come from all over India – Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, North East and other states.
On the outside, Kabir Khan is very strict with the girls. Through his toughness he wants to instill discipline and integrity in the team, something which is significantly missing.
Within the team, there is hardly any camaraderie. There are usual girlie fights and arguments. Somebody is egoistic, somebody too self-centered, somebody is hot-tempered and somebody is simply naïve.
Using very unconventional methods, Kabir Khan manages to create a team spirit among the girls. But some differences remain, only to be sorted out in the World Cup tournament in Australia, which the team must win to make India proud. But Kabir Khan is fighting for more than pride for India. For him the victory would bring redemption (for his momentary failure 7 years ago) and reclamation of his lost honour. And when that moment of reckoning does come, he looks on with disbelief in his teary eyes.
‘Chak De India’ is not just a sports film. It is replete with myriad emotions. And the best part is that Shimit Amin tells the story very realistically, making it all the more believable. He also doesn’t bring any unnecessary dramatization into the story.
The movie has a number of intelligently conceived sequences. For instance, a sequence when the girl’s hockey team has to prove their mettle against the men’s team. The girls lose by a narrow margin, but they get an applause and salutation from male players. Or another sequence when the girls bash up a bunch of eve teasers. These sequences and the last portions of the second half – when the crucial matches are played – evoke a flood of emotions inside a viewer.
A constant thread of humour runs through the film’s narrative. The humour is vernacular, and genuinely funny at that. The funniest of the lot is the rustic Haryanavi girl Komal (Chitrashi Rawat) and the hot-tempered Punjabi girl Balbir Kaur (Tanya Abrol).
After a long time – perhaps since Swades – Shah Rukh gives a substantial reason to write something about his acting. The superstar doesn’t go overboard in his performance in ‘Chak De’– there is no quivering of lips and no heavy breathing. Using his facial expressions and intense eyes to his advantage, with utmost conviction SRK plays a man simmering and seething within. Undoubtedly, this one is a praiseworthy performance from the King Khan.
SRK isn’t the sole focus of the film. Ample footage is given to the girls. Shilpa Shukla (as the egoistic Bindia) delivers a laudable performance. She maintains a snooty, high-headed demeanor throughout the film. Sagarika Ghatge (as the attacking forward player Preeti Sabarwal) is convincing. Vidya Malvade (as the goalie) plays her part well.
To conclude this review, let me say objectively that ‘Chak De India’ surpasses the expectations that I had begun to have from Yashraj Films of late. A great deal of credit for this gripping film should go to director Shimit Amin, who never lets the technicalities, the cinematic style (or still better the visual beauty) overtake the essence of the story.
At the end of the day, ‘Chak De India’ is a deeply touching film that offers plenty for you to carry home with.
Do yourself a favour, go and see this film. It is a must-watch.

Partner !!!

2007-08-14T08:31:00.000+05:30

Salman Khan .... Prem

Katrina Kaif .... Priya

Govinda .... Bhaskar

Lara Dutta .... Naina

Director : David Dhawan

It makes you laugh now and then, but it falls short of being a laugh riot. David Dhawan’s movie ‘Partner’ works because Govinda shows traces of his old comic self once again. One would be stupid to expect some sense out of a David Dhawan flick. He is the man who can give a humorous twist to hogwash. His brand of comedy is strictly slapstick, and pretty enjoyable at that. And ‘Partner’, his comeback film after a gap of one-and-a-half years, does carry a good dose of comedy. But it is certainly not among Dhawan’s best works. Govinda remains the backbone of the film. Salman Khan, sharing almost equal footage, provides him good support. Besides their performances, it is the script that makes the movie click. The plot may be flimsy, but the dialogues are far from banal.

The comedy in the dialogues is in rhyme. For instance when Govinda finds Salman with his (Govinda’s) girlfriend on a boat, he says Tu meri girlfriend ka saiyaan ban ke, naiiya ke upar, chaiyya chaiyya kar raha hai. Or in another scene when Govinda forgets to wear his pants, Salman says: “Dude, you’re practically nude”. The film has many more hilarious dialogues like these with rhyming words.

‘Partner’ tells the story of a Love Guru and his chela. Prem (Salman Khan) was born to be a love guru. He was born among girls, grew up among girls and now he gives advice and guidance to people about how to woo girls.

Enters Bhaskar (Govinda), a chubby, bespectacled dreamer who is in love with his stunningly beautiful boss, Priya (Katrina Kaif), a multi-millionaire heiress of Jaisingh group of industries. When Bhaskar asks Prem for tips to win Priya’s heart, the love guru laughs off and tells Bhaskar to forget her.

After a bit of persuasion and a series of minor misadventures in Phuket, Prem agrees to guide Bhaskar.

On a different front, Prem falls for Naina (Lara Dutta), a journalist who keeps bumping into him while running away from the underworld’s ‘dreaded’ Chhota Don (Rajpal Yadav).
The two love stories move ahead. With more than a little help from Love Guru, Bhaskar is able to make a notable impression on Priya and win her affection. On the other hand, Prem makes his advances on Naina.

Things take a turn when Priya’s father fixes her marriage with a foreigner. This is when Bhaskar arrives on the marriage scene to win her hand. And just when it seems that both Bhaskar and Prem’s respective love stories would have a happy ending, there comes another twist. Their secret is exposed.

The comedy in ‘Partner’ is not cerebral. It is not so high on wit as on slapstick. The jokes and the gags have a desi, street flavour. And there are some dialogues that are indeed hilarious.
When gangster Chhota Don (who speaks in cricket lingo all the time) gets wet by a kid’s urine in a loo, he says: pitch geeli kar di. Or whenever Govinda gets too happy he begins weeping and exclaims: Itni Khushi!.

There is no doubt about the fact that the chemistry between Govinda and Salman is groovy. There is not a single scene in the film in which either of them tries to outdo the other. Despite this, Govinda dominates the proceedings simply because of his superb comic timing. The actor is rediscovering his old magical touch again. Salman, too, gives a few moments of laughter, but he is no match for his chubby partner.

The ladies don’t have much to do in this film. Yet, Katrina Kaif looks mesmerizingly beautiful. Lara Dutta plays her part well. Rajpal Yadav is strictly okay.

‘Partner’ could have done without the Chhota Don track (featuring Rajpal Yadav in a spoof on SRK’s ‘Don’). Even Rajat Bedi’s character (that of a womanizer) is half-baked, though it has some significance in the plot. And there are certain sequences that are completely out of sync. For instance, Salman on a motorboat, dodging a killer rocket. Or Salman getting bullied by a little kid.

‘Partner’ may be heavily inspired from the Hollywood film ‘Hitch’ but the comedy in it is very desi. The music by Sajid-Wajid is funky and goes well with the film’s theme.

All said, the best sequence of ‘Partner’ comes in the end, when both Govinda and Salman are having their honeymoon in adjacent rooms. In this final sequence comes the comedy that will have you in splits.

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Music Album : Partner

It would be foolish to expect anything serious from a film’s music if David Dhawan happens to be its director and his two favourites Salman Khan and Govinda, the lead actors. ‘Partner’ is a film that promises Dhawan’s trademark kitsch, slapstick and wit, all rolled together in an enjoyable comedy.

The opening track, ‘Do You Wanna Partner’ is high on techno quotient but low on melody. The song, sung by Udit Narayan and Shaan, is a dance track with a heady cocktail of Latino Lambda and elements of qawwali. Sanjay Chel’s words are banal but nicely sequenced to lend a frivolity to the track. An enjoyable number, all in all. Its remix version is high on tempo and bass.

‘Dupatta Tera Nau Rang Da’ continues the upbeat mood with its lively, vibrant spirit that combines Punjabi pop with techno. Both Sonu Nigam and Kunal Ganjawala render this song with full gusto. Sajid Wajid’s musical arrangement gives this number a pepped up feel.

Hip Hop meets Reggae meets desi filmi music in You’re My Love. The song’s rollicking mood stands in sharp contrast to its average melody and unimpressive singing by both Shaan and Shweta Pandit. Hip Hop rap by Earl D'Souza's lends a bit of vigour to this otherwise bland track. The remix version of ‘You’re My Love’ has an added thump.

‘Maria Maria’ weaves a feeling of déjà vu with its folksy Goan feel. Sounds of guitars, drums and violin blend together to create an atmosphere of a party while singers Sonu Nigam and Sunidhi display their vocal dexterity. A strictly passable number.

The album steers back into Punjabi mood with ‘Soni De Nakhre’. Sajid-Wajid muffle the Punjabi bhangra effect with an electronic treatment of this track. Labh Janjuwa’s vocals are earthy and have a rustic flavour.

All in all, the music of ‘Partner’ is no great shakes despite the fact that it offers many dance tracks. The songs in the album do manage to create a mood of fun and frivolity. But there is nothing that makes a place in your heart.

Cash !!! Steal the diamond if u can !!!

2007-08-07T21:57:00.000+05:30

Starring
Ajay Devgan .... Karan
Ritesh Deshmukh .... Lucky
Esha Deol .... Pooja
Zayed Khan .... Danny
Sunil Shetty .... Angad
Dia Mirza .... Aditi
Shamita Shetty .... Shania

Director : Anubhav Sinha

Stylish cinematography, slick editing and classy stunts cannot make a film. And that is all Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Cash’ has got.

Anubhav Sinha takes a couple of zany characters, a bunch of thieves and thugs, and he throws in a common motive for them – a set of priceless diamonds. He twists and turns his camera from every conceivable angle. He throws in an ample dash of stunts (supported by sloppy animation). Doing so, Sinha comes up with a film that is visually appealing, not a notch more than that.

In a nutshell, ‘Cash’ is all style and no substance.

The film tells the story of an ace conman Karan or Doc (Ajay Devgan) who hires a bunch of robbers to carry out a perfect heist of priceless diamonds in South Africa.

Each of these thieves has his or her specialty.

Danny (Zayed Khan) loves to battle the waves. He is a surfer. Lucky (Ritesh Deshmukh) is a skateboarder, and Pooja (Esha Deol) is the get-away girl. None can catch her once she is behind the steering wheel of a car.

On the other hand, there is a vengeful underworld don (Sunil Shetty) who is hell-bent on getting his hands on the diamonds. And there is gorgeous Aditi (Dia Mirza), a girl who believes in love, trust and loyalty.

And then there are also those who have been given the responsibility of the security of the diamonds. Shania (Shamita Shetty) is the feisty Head of Security.

What follows is a heist. But things go horribly wrong after that. There is double cross and treachery. Things boil to such a point that the winner will take the diamonds but the loser may have to lose his or her life.

Admitted that ‘Cash’ has its fair share of stunts and action. But with the exception of a few scenes the movie hardly sets your adrenalin rushing. On top of it is the ridiculous animation of the characters. Each character is sort of given a designer makeover in the cartoon version.

Only performances by actors could have saved the film, but there, too, ‘Cash’ falters. Ajay Devgan is wooden. He just doesn’t put his heart into the performance. Sunil Shetty, as before, remains expressionless (despite putting in his heart). Zayed Khan and Ritesh Deshmukh are strictly okay.

Interestingly, it is the leading ladies who score better. Shamita Shetty is impressive and Dia Mirza is eye candy. Esha Deol is neither of the two.

At the end of the day, ‘Cash’ turns out to be a senseless action thriller. It is like a rollercoaster heading nowhere. Music by Vishal-Shekhar may hold some interest, but a lack of engaging script cannot be overlooked.

Bong Connection !!!

2007-07-13T23:05:00.000+05:30

Director:Anjan Dutt

Writer:Anjan Dutt (script)
Genre:Drama

Plot Summary:

The first cross-over feature film in 'Benglish' from Moxie Entertainments. Directed by Anjan Dutt and produced by Joy Brata Ganguly.

The film is based on the lives of Bengali's across the world, especially on those settled abroad. It attempts to delineate the pain and dilemma of Bengali's estranged from their places of origin. It seeks to explore sensitive souls singing to the tunes of Tagore.

A story about two youths, Andy and Apu, having cross-cultural issues. Andy is a Bengali American and Apu is a Bengali-Indian residing here in Kolkata, leading their usual lives.
Fate takes a fortunate turn and both the boys are offered jobs in the countries that they always dreamt of residing in. They shift base to the foreign country and the cross-cultural adjustments start taking place.

The film stars Shayan Munshi, Raima Sen, Peeya Rai Choudhuri, Victor Banerjee, Soumitra Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, June Maliah, Mamata Shankar, Junie Hong, Jordan Graham, Travis Ammons, Josephine John, and a host of other American and international actors.

Fantastic-4- Rise of the Silver Surfer

2007-06-21T09:41:00.000+05:30

Superhero fans have got it made these days: You want dark and gloomy, you head for the newest Batman movie. You crave earnest and wholesome, you pick one of the three Spider-Man flicks. Whatever mood you happen to be in, there's now a superhero movie (or series) to pick through: Hulk, Daredevil, Hellboy, Superman, Ghost Rider, you name it. Just about all the classic superheroes are now available in cinematic form, some good and some bad, some "dark and gloomy" and others all "touchy feely" ... but where's the "family friendly" superhero movie? The one that doesn't deal with tortured psyches, metaphysical angst or some form of anguished misery? Well heck, here's one: It's called Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and while it's often a pretty goofy little movie, it's also a perfect flick for young dads and their 9-year-old sons.
To call FF2 an improvement over its predecessor would be damning the sequel with faint praise. Aside from a few editorial missteps and a leading lady who still couldn't act warm if you set her hair on fire, there's quite a lot to enjoy in Fantastic Four 2: The actors seem a lot more comfortable with their strange roles, the jokey material is a lot less dorky, and (best of all) the sequel has an actual STORY that's both cohesive and surprisingly compelling. Sometimes it's OK to enjoy a mindless piece of popcorn escapism, one that's as broadly silly as it is colorfully exciting -- and maybe it's just a case of "lowered expectations" (seeing as how I didn't much care for the first FF entry) -- but there's something strangely infectious about the Fantastic Four sequel. (Plus, the flick clocks in at 91 minutes and is firmly PG-rated, which should be double good news for the movie-hoppin' parents out there.)
The plot is, of course, pure comic-book nuttiness: Reed Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) are planning to wed, but as two of the planet's only "outed" superheroes, their mega-celebrity status prevents anything close to "private and personal" from taking place. Every time Reed and Sue line up for their nuptials, something (literally) explosive takes place. This time around it's the unexpected arrival of an interstellar mystery man dubbed "The Silver Surfer." Turns out that wherever the shiny alien being goes, crazy stuff happens: Snow in the desert, giant craters popping up all over the globe, massive power outages, stuff like that.
Without spoiling too much I can tell you that The Surfer is not actually a malicious villain, but is actually an extra-terrestrial herald for a being called, well, the head villain sometimes goes by the nickname "Eater of Planets" -- so obviously the Fantastic Four has got their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to deal with the freaky alien dude and his slow-arriving mega-boss, but also a bunch of gung-ho military types who are more interested in blowing things up than in befriending invincible shiny aliens. Of course it will take a complete team effort to save the world this time around, which means that Reed's powers of "stretchiness," Sue's inviso-force field talents, Johnny's flaming skills and The Thing's brute force are going to come in very handy indeed. (Ah, and nasty ol' Dr. Doom is back too!)
Those who've grown a little weary of the angst-laden superhero stories may find themselves surprisingly captivated by FF2. It's not nearly in the same league as the very finest Marvel adaptations, but it seems pretty clear to me that series director Tim Story paid close attention to most of the complaints surrounding his first entry ... and actually fixed those problems for the sequel! True that FF2 suffers from some really choppy editing (particuarly near Act III) and yet another one-note performance from the curvy-yet-vacant Ms. Alba, but just about all my other complaints on Fantastic Four have been addressed and remedied in FF2: The humor is just a little less dorky, the flick moves forward like a shot, the special effects (especially the Surfer) are really quite nifty, and it feels like Story and his screenwriters have finally struck a solid balance between high-end heroics and light-but-amusing sitcom-style humor.
In a move that might strike some of the FF purists as heresy, the filmmakers figured out a way to bring Julian McMahon back (without the Dr. Doom helmet), but it's a decision that helps the movie a whole lot. In only a few scenes, McMahon delivers a smoothly diabolical performance that'll leave you wanting more. Chris Evans is still a lot of sarcastic fun as the girl-crazy Johnny Storm -- while leading man Gruffudd seems to have really settled in to a comfort level with his Mr. Fantastic character. In the first flick I found the guy too stiff and robotic; here he cuts loose a little and makes for a mega-smart super-hero we can actually get behind.
So, no, it sure isn't brain surgery, but if you're looking for a superhero movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, is perfectly safe for family viewing, and capably blends action, sci-fi and comedy into one colorful concoction, you could do a whole lot worse than FF2. Plus it's got one action scene that's cooler than anything offered up in Spider-Man 3 -- and I never would have expected THAT!

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

2007-06-17T23:17:00.000+05:30

Directed by Shaad Ali Sahgal; written by Habib Faisal; director of photography, Ayananka Bose; edited by Ritesh Shivalkar; music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy; choreography by Vaibhavi Merchant; art directors, Sukant Panigrahy and Andrew Munro; produced by Aditya Chopra; released by Yash Raj Films.. Running time: 138 minutes.
WITH: Abhishek Bachchan (Rikki Thukral), Preity Zinta (Alvira Khan), Lara Dutta (Anaida), Bobby Deol (Steve) and in a special appearance, Amitabh Bachchan.

If Bollywood has a credo, it might be that everything is possible. The corollary is just as important: Nothing is too big or too obvious. A character is in Paris? Fine. He must dance with his love in front of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Obelisk of Luxor. The song they sing? "Ticket to Hollywood" of course.
That’s just one sequence in "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom," a giddy romantic comedy with star power (the father-son team of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan; Preity Zinta; Bobby Deol; Lara Dutta), wanderlust and a charming can-do, why-not-the-kitchen-sink spirit.
"Jhoom" begins in Waterloo Station in London with Bollywood’s restless éminence grise Amitabh Bachchan, the film’s Greek chorus (and chorine), doing what he does best: dancing and commanding the screen. His costume and person are wonders. With his double-necked guitar, feathered hat, necklaces, coat of many colors and jeans tucked into high boots, he’s part Sufi mystic, part gyrating Cossack, part George Clinton.
But "Jhoom" belongs to its romantic hero, the junior Bachchan, Abhishek, who has come into his own as an actor and star. "I’ve got class" his hustler character announces, wooing Ms. Zinta, and Mr. Bachchan proves it, showing off his comic flair (not unlike his father’s) and joyous dancing.
Directed by Shaad Ali Sahgal, with lush cinematography by Ayananka Bose, "Jhoom" seems at first like the silliest and slickest of trifles: boy meets girl, waiting for a delayed train. Complications. Song and dance. (Repeat.) Love.
But Mr. Sahgal is up to something here, deftly playing with the audience’s expectations of Bollywood storytelling. To reveal more would require a spoiler, so suffice it to say that "Jhoom" laden with in-jokes, brims with confidence and the courage of its own loopy style.

'Cheeni Kum' : Sugar-free Sarcasm

2007-06-13T09:55:00.000+05:30

Hindi movies are getting more and more real. Till sometime back, certain themes were kept locked inside the almirah, but delicate and sensitive issues and relationships are slowly stepping out of the closet. On celluloid R. Balki's Cheeni Kum talks of two consenting adults wanting to spend the rest of their lives together. But there's a hitch... The groom-to-be is elder than the prospective father-in-law. This relationship is highly objectionable to the bride's father!
Contrary to general perception, Cheeni Kum is not similar to RGV's Nishabd. Like Nishabd, Cheeni Kum looks at the relationship between a much older man and a young woman, fit to be his daughter. But, unlike Nishabd, Cheeni Kum stresses on humor to drive home the point. Also, the culmination -- so vital in a film of this genre -- is not difficult to gulp since the sequence of events that lead to the climax are believable.
On the flip side, Cheeni Kum tends to get verbose, talk heavy at times. Besides, the first hour tends to stagnate. It only sprints towards the second hour when Amitabh pops up the question. More on that later!
In a nutshell, a film like Cheeni Kum signifies the winds of change in Bollywood. An effort like this is sure to find its share of bouquets and brickbats. The elite wouldn't mind the film, the commoners might.
The boy is actually a 64-year-old man, Buddhadev Gupta [Amitabh Bachchan]. The girl is a 34-year-old woman, Nina Verma [Tabu].
Buddhadev is the chef cum owner of London's top Indian restaurant. He lives with his 85-year-old mother [Zohra Sehgal] and his only friend and confidante is his 9-year-old neighbor -- Sexy [Swini Khara]. Buddhadev is an arrogant, egoistic, pompous man with a singular passion in life -- cooking. A confirmed bachelor who has never been in love. Until Nina walks into his restaurant and life.
Nina is a beautiful, charming, Indian woman. Cool, calm, quiet, always smiling, but independent and strong willed. Two extremes, in age, character and attitude, meet and against all odds fall in love. They decide to get married. And, like any Indian man, Buddhadev respectfully comes to ask Nina's father, Omprakash Verma [Paresh Rawal], living in Delhi, for her hand.
But there's just one problem... Nina's father is 58 years old, 6 years younger than Buddhadev, his would be son-in-law.
Let's get into the analyzing mode and find out what works and what doesn't... The sequences between Amitabh and Tabu at the restaurant are involving. The relationship that Amitabh shares with his mother does raise eyebrows, since it's not conventional. Nonetheless, it's amusing. The moments between Amitabh and the child bring to fore another aspect of the protagonist's personality, which is welcome.
What doesn't? A number of sequences have been stretched for no reason. They tend to get repetitive. As someone who's watching the story from the sides, you want it to proceed in some direction, but there's not much movement in the first half. It takes its own sweet time to reach its destination. Besides, since the film is set in London and the setting is urban, the humor depicted in Cheeni Kum is directed at the elite. That, in turn, robs the film of universal acceptance.
Director Balki shows a flair for light entertainers and the execution of certain sequences is commendable. The portions between Amitabh and Paresh [before Amitabh asks for Tabu's hand] as also the climax [Amitabh's monologue] prove Balki's competence as a storyteller. But at the same time, the writing leaves something to be desired. There are times when boredom sets in.
P.C. Sreeram's cinematography is splendid. Ilaiyaraaja's musical score is soothing. The title track is soft on your ear drums. Chandan Arora's editing could've been sharper. Ideally, a few repetitive moments can be done away with.
Amitabh Bachchan proves his supremacy yet again. Playing an arrogant chef, the actor is natural all through, but his performance in the finale makes the character all the more believable. Tabu stands on her feet despite a formidable co-star's domineering presence. She's excellent. Paresh Rawal is only adding to his credibility with every film. Zohra Sehgal is adorable. Swini Khara is supremely confident.
On the whole, Cheeni Kum is absorbing in parts. A lackluster first half gets a boost with a much energetic second half and that elevates the film to the watchable level. At the box-office, Cheeni Kum is targeted at the multiplexes mainly. Clever promos and feel-good vibes should ensure a positive run at the multiplexes.

Shoot Out at Lokhanwala !!!

2007-06-12T08:46:00.001+05:30

Starring

Vivek Oberoi .......... Maya Dolas

Sanjay Dutt .... ......ACP Aftab Ahmed Khan

Tusshar Kapoor .... Dilip Buva

Sunil Shetty .......... Kaviraj Patil

Director : ................Apoorva Lakhia

Apoorva Lakhia has a fascination for making stylistic films. His latest flick ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’ is a gritty recreation of the real-life shooting encounter between cops and gangsters in Mumbai in 1991. The film has a very raw and rugged look. At times it gets surreally dark and very violent. And after a while all the bloodshed and gore begin to get to you.

The film is not just about the shootout incident on the fateful summer day in Lokhandwala in 1991. It goes deep into the lives and minds of gangsters Maya Dolas, his sidekick Dilip Buwa and their three colleagues. It also focuses on the way cops function to nab the dreaded criminals, putting their own lives on the line.

One good thing about ‘Shootout’ is that it doesn’t take sides. It attempts to objectively present the facts of the incident, along with the events leading to it, from both the perspectives of cops and gangsters.

On the side of the cops, the central figure is ACP Aftab Ahmed Khan (Sanjay Dutt), the officer-in-charge of the entire operation to flush out the gangsters from a Lokhandwala flat. Supporting Khan in this mission are two brave cops: Kaviraj Patil (Sunil Shetty) and Javed Shaikh (Arbaaz Khan).

On the side of the gangsters, the central figure is Maya Dolas (Vivek Oberoi), a fearless, trigger-happy gangster who rose in the underworld through the sheer dint of his grit. Maya’s sidekick Dilip Buwa (Tusshar Kapoor) is dreadful but also humane.

The movie’s story, allegedly based on “true rumours”, establishes that the shootout in Lokhandwala wasn’t a random, isolated incident but was the culmination of a build-up of a series of incidents. The movie also shows how tough the job of cops is when they have to leash the trigger-happy gangsters within the powers given to them by law.

Sanjay Dutt is competent in playing the role of ACP A A Khan. Amitabh Bachchan gets shadowed in the film’s huge cast ensemble but still leaves an impact in the last few reels. Sunil Shetty manages not to ham. Arbaaz Khan is strictly okay while Abhishek Bachchan has a very miniscule role.

On the flip side, Vivek Oberoi is convincing enough playing the role that is in parts similar to his debut performance as Chandu in ‘Company’. However, Vivek’s Maya is sinister, ruthless, fearless and tempestuous.

Tusshar Kapoor is convincing, while other actors like Rohit Roy, Shabbir Ahluwalia and Aditya Lakhia stay on the sidelines.

Director Apoorva Lakhia pays attention to the details but misses out on certain points. The cops are shown without bulletproof jackets while encountering the gunmen. The gangsters’ phone lines aren’t jammed till the dying moments of the long encounter. Also the movie has some unnecessary songs that slacken the story’s pace.

The female actors have very little scope in this film but Amrita Singh stands out with her intense performance. Dia Mirza hardly sounds and acts like a journalist. Aarti Chabria gets a moment to show her acting (besides her dancing) in the second half.

‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’ has too much violence, bloodshed and gore. It is clear that the film’s makers want the movie to hit hard at the audience. Lakhia joins the pieces of the film’s story through a series of flashbacks. There are some emotional moments to lend a raw sentimentality to the flick.

All in all, ‘Shootout’ is not bad for watching once.

Metro !!!

2007-05-27T00:12:00.000+05:30

Starring
Shilpa Shetty .... Shikha
Shiney Ahuja .... Akash
Kangana Ranaut .... Neha
Kay Kay Menon .... Ranjeet
Konkona Sen Sharma .... Shruti
Irrfan Khan .... Debu

Director : Anurag Basu

Anurag Basu keeps getting better at his job. After a hard-hitting ‘Gangster’, the skilled filmmaker now comes up with ‘Metro’, a realistic and riveting film with cinematic standards at par with international cinema.

In ‘Metro’, Anurag does convincingly what other filmmakers in Bollywood have been clumsily trying lately. He tells a multi-layered story revolving around several characters. Each story is stacked with another in a meaningful, well thought way. The characters in each story are somehow connected to character(s) in another. And in this way the multi-narrative story moves on, with each subplot complementing the other, until the movie reaches a high point in the end.

On this strong foundation, Anurag puts his directorial skills into action, extracts superb performances from his cast, props it with Pritam’s compositions and overall comes up with a tight, technically sound and well-crafted movie.

To begin with, the film has a very properly chosen cast ensemble. Of course, it has no big star (except Shilpa Shetty perhaps) but every actor is cast in a role perfectly suited to him or her.

Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) is a thirty-year-old girl who is still a virgin and has no love in her life. She meets Debu (Irrfan Khan), a possible suitor, but rejects him because of his eccentric straightforwardness. Shruti has a crush on a RJ at the radio centre she works in. But her small fling with him ends with a shocking revelation.

Shikha (Shilpa Shetty), Shruti’s elder sister, is married to Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon) and has a daughter. There is no love left between Shikha and Ranjeet. Theirs is more like a marriage of compromise.

Ranjeet is the boss in a BPO firm. In the same office works Rahul (Sharman Joshi) who lives in his uncle’s flat, which is often used by his colleagues and seniors as a joint for having sex. Rahul obliges his seniors because he wants to rise up to managerial levels in his office.

Rahul has a crush on Neha (Kangana Ranaut), his colleague. He doesn’t know that Neha is in a sexual relationship with Ranjeet, until the day Ranjeet asks Rahul for the key to his flat to ‘spend time’ with Neha.

On the other hand, there is a series of brief encounters between Shikha and Akash (Shiney Ahuja).

Akash is a theatre artist who does his rehearsals next to an Old Age home that Shikha regularly visits to meet her former teacher Shivani (Nafisa Ali).

Dharmendra plays Amol, Shivani’s lover from the past who comes back into her life to spend his last days with her.

Meanwhile, Shikha and Akash develop a mutual attraction. Their relationship reaches just on the cusp of crossing the limit when Shikha backs out.

On the other hand, Neha feels ‘used’ by her boss Ranjeet and tries to commit suicide.

Shruti meets Debu again and they become good friends. But there is a problem. Debu is set to marry another girl.

In this complex tangle, the movie’s story seems headed for a stifling stalemate when a timely stimulus is provided by a very small but significant incident that makes the characters realize the importance of following their hearts and not heads.

Thereafter, every complexity is resolved in the mere wink of an eye. Suddenly every character in the story begins to see clearly and puts his or her tangled life straight.

‘Metro’ is a gripping film but it gets heavy in the second half when the stories in it begin to look more and more commonplace. Thankfully, things don’t drag for long. The aforementioned stimuli sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the culmination of the stories.

Among the performances the most impressive come from Irrfan Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Konkona Sen Sharma and Kay Kay Menon. Irrfan, playing the eccentrically frank and friendly guy, provides many joyful moments to the otherwise serious and sombre film. Shilpa surpasses her previous performances with her sensitive portrayal of a conscientious wife attracted towards another man. Shiney Ahuja is strictly okay. Kangana Ranaut plays her part convincingly. Sharman Joshi is impressive. Dharmendra has a tender charm that comes through in every scene he shares with Nafisa Ali.

‘Metro’ doesn’t have a single song picturized on any actor. It is the Metro band (Pritam, James and a third guy) that performs all the songs at regular intervals in the film.

Visually, ‘Metro’ has a very sleek look. Basu’s treatment of the story is very realistic and the dialogues sound straight out of life. Most importantly, not once does the emotional turmoil of characters in the film becomes soppy and superficially sentimental.

‘Metro’ is a beautifully crafted film. It definitely ought to be seen once.

Next summer, the greatest battle lies... within...Spiderman 3 (2007) !!!

2007-05-06T08:46:00.000+05:30

Tobey Maguire ... Spider-Man/Peter Parker
Kirsten Dunst ... Mary Jane Watson
James Franco ... New Goblin/Harry Osborn
Thomas Haden Church ... Sandman/Flint Marko
Topher Grace ... Venom/Eddie Brock
Bryce Dallas Howard ... Gwen Stacy
Rosemary Harris ... May Parker
J.K. Simmons ... J. Jonah Jameson
James Cromwell ... Captain Stacy
Theresa Russell ... Emma Marko
Dylan Baker ... Dr. Curt Connors
Bill Nunn ... Joseph 'Robbie' Robertson
Bruce Campbell ... Maître d’
Elizabeth Banks ... Miss Brant
Cliff Robertson ... Uncle Ben Parker
Ted Raimi ... Hoffman
Perla Haney-Jardine ... Penny Marko
Elya Baskin ... Mr. Ditkovitch
Mageina Tovah ... Ursula
John Paxton ... Houseman
Becky Ann Baker ... Mrs. Stacy
Stan Lee ... Man in Times Square
Michael Papajohn ... Dennis Carradine/Carjacker
Joe Manganiello ... Flash Thompson
Hal Fishman ... Anchorman
Lucy Gordon ... Jennifer Dugan
Steve Valentine ... Photographer
Tim Maculan ... Play Director
Marc Vann ... Play Producer
Joe Bays ... Jazz Club Manager
Gregg Daniel ... Detective Neil Garrett
Rogelio T. Ramos ... Emergency Room Doctor
Timothy Patrick Quill ... Crane Operator
Menachem Mendel Boymelgreen ... Kid in Times Square
Nasir Stewart ... Kid in Times Square
Austin Hendrickson ... Kid in Times Square
Taylor Hemhauser ... Kid in Times Square
Kathryn Bryding ... Woman Outside Theater
Joe Virzi ... Police Detective
Bill E. Rogers ... New Jersey State Policeman #1
Michael Alexander ... New Jersey State Policeman #2 (as Mike Alexander)
April Parker ... Test Site Technician #1
Edward Padilla ... Test Site Technician #2
Robert Curtis-Brown ... Test Site Technician #3
Paul Terrell Clayton ... Test Site Technician #4 (as Terrell Clayton)
Carolyn Neff ... Test Site Technician #5
Christina Cindrich ... Test Site Technician #6
Sonya Maddox ... ICU Nurse
Andre B. Blake ... Crane Disaster Radio Policeman
Derrick 'Phoenix' Thomas ... Cop at Crane Disaster (as Derrick Thomas) Jessi Collins ... Mary Jane’s Replacement Michael McLaughlin ... Boy at Keys to the City Ceremony Anne Gartland ... Councilwoman
Emilio Rivera ... Policeman at Sand Truck #1
Keith Woulard ... Policeman at Sand Truck #2
Reynaldo Gallegos ... Armored Car Driver
Jim Coope ... Newsstand Patron #1
Dean Edwards ... Newsstand Patron #2
Margaret Laney ... Newsstand Patron #3
Toni Wynne ... Congratulatory Woman at Daily Bugle
Aimee Miles ... Coffee Shop Waitress
Tanya Sinovec ... Jazz Club Waitress
Mark Kubr ... Jazz Club Bouncer
Emma Raimi ... Girl with Camera
Lorne Raimi ... Boy at the Final Battle #1
Henry Raimi ... Boy at the Final Battle #2
Samantha Ressler ... Girl at the Final Battle
Alan Cohn ... Jazz Club Musician
Dan Callahan ... Jazz Club Musician
Ron King ... Jazz Club Musician
Carol Chaikin ... Jazz Club Musician
Dan Cummings ... Jazz Club Musician
Vance Hammond ... Jazz Club Musician

Peter Parker has finally found the balance he's longed for between his love for Mary Jane Watson and his responsibilities as Spider-Man. The city of New York and it's citizens are at last coming around and appreciating everything he has done as his crime-fighting alter ego, and Peter is in the running for a staff job at the Daily Bugle. However, everything Peter has worked for is about to unravel. Flint Marko, while fleeing prison, is caught in an accident that displaces molecules and is transformed into the Sandman, a new super villain who is able to change his body into any shape of sand he sees fit. When Peter learns of a connection between The Sandman and the murder of his Uncle Ben, he will stop at nothing as Spider-Man to capture him. But before Peter can do so he discovers a mysterious black substance has turned his suit black, and has brought forth a darker side of Parker and Spidey nobody has seen before. Peter begins to give into this new dark personality, starts to abandon the ones he loves the most and in turn his best friend Harry Osborn takes up his late father's mantle as The New Goblin. Quickly Parker begins a new romance with his lab partner, the beautiful Gwen Stacy but in doing so Peter sets off a rival Bugle photographer, a troubled young man by the name of Eddie Brock who is obsessed with Stacy. Little does Peter know the black substance has its sights set on Eddie else as well. Brock is turned into Venom, a arch-foe that mirrors everything Spider-Man can do. Peter is forced to become the strong-willed hero he has forgotten about if he hopes to defeat his greatest threat yet.

Peter Parker has finally managed to piece together the once-broken parts of his life, maintaining a balance between his relationship with Mary-Jane and his responsibility as Spider-Man. But more challenges arise for our young hero. Peter's old friend Harry Obsourne has set out for revenge against Peter; taking up the mantle of his late father's persona as The New Goblin, and Peter must also capture Uncle Ben's real killer, Flint Marko, who has been transformed into his toughest foe yet, the Sandman. All hope seems lost when suddenly Peter's suit turns jet-black and greatly amplifies his powers. But it also begins to greatly amplify the much darker qualities of Peter's personality that he begins to lose himself to. Peter has to reach deep inside himself to free the compassionate hero he used to be if he is to ever conquer the darkness within and face not only his greatest enemies, but also...himself.

Tara Rum Pum

2007-05-06T08:39:00.000+05:30

Starring

Saif Ali Khan .... Rajveer Singh aka RV

Rani Mukherjee .... Radhika
Director : Siddharth Anand

The power of love and togetherness can sometimes be so strong that it can make you go through the thick and thin of life with a smile on your face. This is the gist of Yashraj Film’s latest presentation ‘Tara Rum Pum’.
The movie, written and directed by Siddharth Anand (of Salaam Namaste), is a feelgood flick with doses of all the necessary ingredients that go into making a wholesome entertainer. It has light humour, romance, thrills, tragedy, the drama of life, hardships, struggle, the test of human spirit and the final triumph.
Set in New York, the film tells the story of Rajveer Singh (Saif Ali Khan), his wife Radhika (Rani Mukherjee) and their two kids Champ (Ali Haji) and Princess (Angelina Idnani).
Rajveer and Radhika are as different as chalk and cheese. He lives for the moment and doesn’t think much of future. She, on the other hand, plans every move of her life carefully.
Rajveer and Radhika first meet in a crazy cab ride in which Rajveer is at the steering wheel. It is the same taxi ride that opens the door to fame for Rajveer, who works as a tyre changer on the car race tracks. Impressed by Rajveer’s driving skills, Harry (Javed Jaffery), gives him a chance to be the driver of the racing team called ‘Speeding Saddles’.
Before his first race, Rajveer has a couple of chance encounters with Radhika. He asks her to come to his first race.
With Radhika rooting for him in the stands, Rajveer pushes the limit of speed and emerges the winner of the race. A new race star is born. He is called RV.
Love blossoms between RV and Radhika. Despite opposition from her millionaire father, Radhika marries RV. Over the years, the couple have two children: Princess and Champ. Together the four make an ideally happy family.
Tragedy strikes when RV is pushed to the corner in a car race by a new racer called Rusty. There is a deadly accident and RV is hospitalized for months. A year later, when RV returns to the race track, he no longer has the same edge as before. After a series of losses, RV loses his job and Rusty is signed on in his place.
Unable to pay their loans and debts, RV and Radhika lose their home and have to shift to a low-class cabbie neighborhood in New York.
It is now that the family’s love and bonding is tested. To keep their children out of the strain and stress of poverty, RV and Radhika create a masquerade that they have to live in poor conditions as a part of a reality show. If they win they will get a big prize.
The movie’s director clearly borrows this idea from Italian film ‘Life Is Beautiful’. Not just the idea but even one or two scenes are inspired from portions of the Italian flick.
Moving on, even as RV and Radhika struggle to make ends meet, every member of the family makes sacrifice for the other.
There comes a situation when RV needs huge amount of money to save his son. And he gets a golden opportunity to drive in another car race. But can RV fight his inner demons and emerge victorious?
‘Tara Rum Pum’ is not so much of a romantic story than a story of family bonding. It is about how a couple and their two kids face the hardships of life with a smile on their face. It is about how a man overcomes his inner fears for the sake of his loved ones.
Siddharth Anand’s direction is tight and he keeps the story moving at brisk pace. However, there are a few scenes that look very childish. For instance, when Saif is being chased by his landlord and he hides his face behind a magazine on a restaurant table where Rani Mukherjee is sitting.
The film’s music (by Vishal-Shekhar) is also mediocre. There is hardly any song that remains with you after the movie is over.
As for performances, Saif Ali Khan is once again top rate, playing a guy with devil-cares attitude. His acting is particularly noteworthy in the film’s second half when his inner fears begin emerging on the race-track.
Rani Mukherjee, who plays a pianist, looks glamourous and acts her part pretty well. Only she could have really learnt to play a few chords on the piano a little better. Her discomfiture with the instrument is quite apparent in the scenes that show her playing.
Javed Jaffery goes over the top in many scenes. But this is how his character is designed. Child artiste Angelina Idnani is impressive, while Ali Haji is cute but cannot act.
‘Tara Rum Pum’ has the hallmark of a Yash Raj film. It provides feelgood entertainment for family audiences and children.

Bheja Fry !!!

2007-05-01T07:54:00.000+05:30

Bheja Fry Starcast:

Sarika,Rajat Kapoor,Vinay Pathak,Ranvir Shorey,Milind Soman,Bhairavi Goswami

Director : Sagar Bellary

A rich man gets his kicks from inviting and making fun of talentless singers but this time the tables are turned with hilarious results.

A small film big on laughs, "Bheja Fry" does what most big budget comedies are unable to do nowdays -- inspire genuine laughter. (The awful Bhagam Bhag comes to mind).

The wholecast is competent in their mostly well written roles, but the film belongs to Vinay Pathak. As a bathroom singer with illusions of granduer and a penchant for messing things up coupled with a desire to help everyone, he is a hoot.

The only disappointment comes from Ranvir Shorey whose character comes across more as a caricature than a real one. But that does not take away form the fun you are going to have watching it.

However, the film cannot be called wholly original. It has infact, been heavily inspired from the French film, "The Dinner Game". For this I am taking away one star.

Plus Points: Very funny, good characterisation and Pathak is great!

Minus Points: Too 'sitcomish'and theatrical to completely work asa feature film. Primise and some jokes copied from French film "The Dinner Game".

Namastey London !!!

2007-04-02T22:50:00.000+05:30

Starring :
Akshay Kumar .... Arjun
Katrina Kaif .... Jasmeet aka Jazz
Rishi Kapoor .... Manmohan Singh
Upen Patel .... Imran Khan
Javed Sheikh .... Parvez Khan

Director : Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Producer : Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Lyricist : Javed Akhtar
Musician : Himesh Reshammiya
Music Album : Namastey London

Akshay Kumar is the lifeline of Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s movie ‘Namastey London’. The actor is simply superb not just in his impeccable comic timing, he is highly expressive in emotional scenes as well.

‘Namastey London’ is a wholesome entertainer. It has comedy, romance, good music and some desh bhakti as well. The movie is certainly not a rehash of Manoj Kumar’s ‘Poorab Aur Pashchim’. The East does meet the West in ‘Namastey London’, but the film has its own original storyline and Shah’s own treatment and presentation of the story.

The film begins brilliantly with a bird’s eye view of London. Akshay Kumar steps out of a car and walks hand-in-hand with Katrina Kaif to the altar of a church where she is set to marry another man. Katrina’s eyes convey indecisiveness as Akshay, the Best man, escorts her to her groom-to-be and walks away with a fainting smile on his face.

The story then goes back a few months.

Jasmeet (Katrina) or Jazz, as she prefers to be called, knows well how to get rid of all the suitable boys her Punjabi father Manmohan Singh (Rishi Kapoor) finds for her marriage. Having born and brought up in Britain, she loves the western lifestyle. She hangs out at clubs till late night with her Pakistani friend Imran (Upen Patel) and his English girlfriend Suzanne. Jazz is attracted towards Charlie Brown (Clive Standen) who has been married and divorced three times before.

Tired of Jazz’s obsession towards everything western, her father Manmohan Singh plans a trip to India. It is during this trip, Jazz and her parents meet Arjun Singh (Akshay Kumar) in a Punjab village. While Arjun falls head-over-heels for Jazz in the very first meeting, she feels nothing for him. She only sees him as a villager who milks cows in his backyard.

Jazz’s father fixes her match with Arjun. Despite her unwillingness, Jazz gets married. But as soon as they return back to London, she refuses to acknowledge the marriage. Her decision shatters Arjun. But the Punjab da puttar decides to play along.

Although Jazz wants to marry Charlie Brown, Arjun’s love for her remains unconditional and he is sure that she will reciprocate his feelings some day.

Keeping this Akshay-Katrina track as the backbone of the story, Vipul Shah brings out a contrast in the meeting of the two cultures. The movie shows how young expatriate Indians are drawn towards western lifestyles, forgetting their own culture and values. Arjun Singh, as a Punjabi in London, triggers a change in the hearts of these characters (Jazz and Imran).

Upen Patel plays Imran, a Pakistani in a live-in relationship with an English girl, much against the wishes of his conservative father Parvez (Javed Sheikh).

‘Namastey London’ has several poignant moments. The most outstanding is the one in which a Briton mocks India and its culture, and Arjun gives him befitting gyan about the greatness of India. Another interesting sequence is the rugby match between the Asian and English teams. Apart from this, the chemistry between Akshay and Katrina is brilliant in many scenes. Be it them dancing hand-in-hand or sightseeing London, Akshay and Katrina share a remarkable chemistry.

Akshay particularly is very impressive in his comedy and expressive in emotional scenes. Katrina is pretty much okay in her solo performance. Rishi Kapoor’s acting is natural while Upen Patel just about manages not to ham. Javed Sheikh overacts in many of his scenes. Clive Standen gives a commendable performance.

‘Namastey London’ also hinges heavily on the music by Himesh Reshammiya. Songs like ‘Takna Takna’, ‘Rafta Rafta’ and ‘Veeraaniyan’ are the best of the lot.

In a nutshell, ‘Namastey London’ is a well-made film that provides all-round entertainment for young moviegoers and family crowds as well. The film is definitely worth a watch.

Nishabd

2007-03-06T22:05:00.000+05:30

Starring:
Amitabh Bachchan .... Vijay
Jiah Khan .... Jiah

Director : Ram Gopal Varma

The relationship of an old man with a young, sexy girl always attracts much interest. Many years back I read Lolita and delighted in its latent sexuality. Indian cinema never dared to tackle such subjects not only because it is difficult to bring out the lust tastefully, but also because it feared a backlash of sorts – if Indians can stop the shooting of a film like Water, they would go berserk if such a topic was mentioned. A third reason could well be that no actor could play the role of the lusty old man gracefully.

Of course there was another film, Jogger’s Park, and that was well done too, but in that the judge is seduced for personal ends by the young female. In any case, it was not a case of puppy love.

But now we have the great Mr Bachchan. I believe that only he can play the role of falling in love with a girl less than half his age, and he does it with great intensity. He delights in the young girl and romances her with dignity and style. If there is a fault, it is with the director. He is so conscious of keeping the movie away from controversy that he does not allow Mr Bachchan to have fun. The love and lust are, well, too less.

This of course does not detract from the film. It is a beautifully made film and one wishes the romance goes on and on. The actress, the young Jiah Khan, plays the puppy love of Lolita very well indeed, using her body for maximum effect. We love her legs and her sexuality. She is quite a natural and shows off rather well.

The beauty of the film is that it works on the psychological level. The audience is made to think along with the characters. The dilemma that Mr Bachchan faces before he lets himself drawn into a dangerous liaison, or his relationship with the young girl – the audience is right into the film. It is difficult to see the film as a mere spectator. And, no matter what people say, getting involved in such a relationship is not difficult, even if we do not subscribe to Freud.

But then retribution sets in. I didn’t like that part, but then that is reality. I mean, life cannot be all romance. Once again, Mr Bachchan rises to the role and handles it rather well. His expressions and his nerves standing out in the skin, pull you into his situation. Such an intense actor has never been seen in Hindi cinema.

The performances are just great. Jiah Khan is wonderfully nubile though one wishes there was more of her. She has got a wonderful debut. The film is, however, a tribute to Amitabh. Once again he delivers wonderfully. Every time we think he has reached the end of his range, we get another treat from him. Each emotion is to be savoured.

Ram Gopal Verma has also matured as a director. He has delivered something like Black, a different, mature film. Forget your baggage at home, and enjoy the movie!

Eklavya ~ The Royal Guard

2007-02-25T10:24:00.000+05:30

Amitabh Bachchan .... Eklavya

Saif Ali Khan .... Prince Harshwardhan

Sanjay Dutt .... DSP Pannalal Chohar

Vidya Balan .... Rajjo

Jackie Shroff .... Rana Jyotiwardhan

Boman Irani .... Rana Jaywardhan

Jimmy Shergill .... Udaywardhan

Raima Sen .... Princess Nandini Devi

Sharmila Tagore .... Rani Suhasinidevi

Director : Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Producer : Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Saif Ali Khan plays Prince Harshwardhan – a modern prince who chooses life abroad to escape the suffocating rituals and practices of Devigarh fort. He is the antithesis of his father, the King, who is blind to the modern strides of democratic India.
The dashing Sanjay Dutt plays DSP Pannalal Chohar, who though belongs to a low caste family, but through sheer will and hard work has overcome prejudice and society’s biases to reach the top ranks of the police force. Vidya Balan plays Rajjo – the royal chauffeur’s daughter. Despite her humble status, Rajjo has been the Queen’s confidante and nurtures a secret love for Prince Harshwardhan.
Jackie Shroff plays Rana Jyotiwardhan, the King’s conniving younger brother and also his Chief Advisor. Fro decades he has been a servile sycophant to the King. But all along he has nurtured one wish in his heart: to overthrow the King. The immensely versatile and talented Boman Irani plays Rana Jaywardhan is the King, the figurehead monarch of Devigarh. He is an ineffectual man living in a time warp, haunted by the demons of his own failure. Tormented by a distasteful revelation, he plans to rid the palace of the noble and dutiful Eklavya.
Jimmy Shergill plays Udaywardhan, Jyotiwardhan’s son who plots the King’s downfall with his father. He hates Prince Harshwardhan, is deeply jealous of him and hates his own status as the minor royal. Raima Sen is Princess Nandini Devi – Prince Harshwardhan’s mentally challenged sister and an artist. The innocence of her wild imagination is marred when she witnesses a brutal murder.
Sharmila Tagore plays Rani Suhasinidevi – the gracious Queen who is the moral nucleus of the fort. Her untimely and mysterious death plunges the fort into darkness and sets off a maelstrom of chaos and confusion.
For nine generations Eklavya’s family has protected Devigarh, a centuries old citadel in Rajasthan. Ballads are sung in his father’s praise, for he sacrificed his life trying to save the king. On his father’s death, his mother names him Eklavya and entrusts him with his father’s dagger. He is sworn to protect the fort and its inhabitants. His dagger becomes his only companion. Eklavya will stop at nothing to see that the Rana is safe from his enemies. But age and failing eyesight conspire against his competence.
Prince Harshwardhan returns to Devigarh when his mother, the Queen dies unexpectedly. The Queen’s final letter reveals her dying wish, which he must fulfill. Harshwardhan, now trapped in the fort, must grapple with the intrigue and deception that surround him.
Rajjo is entrusted with a letter for Prince Harshwardhan by the dying Queen. When a barrage of bullets shatter the piece of the fort, Rajjo finds herself pulled into the madness that unfolds. She is forced to put aside her personal grief and find the strength to console and support the prince.
The untimely and mysterious death of the Queen not only plunges the fort into darkness and sets off a maelstrom of chaos and confusion but also forces the Prince back to the kingdom he had left behind. The Prince’s return brings a rush of joy into the moribund fort. Princess Nandini Devi and Rajjo are delighted to see him. But the joy of reunion is short-lived.
There is unrest in the kingdom. Farmers are being stripped of their lands. The King Rana Jaywardhan, influenced by his brother, Rana Jyotiwardhan, supports the atrocities being forced upon the helpless peasants.
The King receives a death threat over the phone. An irreverent police officer, DSP Pannalal Chohar, is called in to investigate. Pannalal is in awe of Eklavya, whose marksmanship has inspired him. He is summoned to Devigarh fort to investigate a death threat to the King.
But Pannalal might be too late because what begins as routine investigation soon draws him into a vortex of lies, deceit, betrayal and murder. The fragile peace of the land is suddenly shattered by a barrage of bullets. And amidst the mayhem, the safely guarded secrets of the fort are unveiled.
Will Eklavya be able to fulfill his dharma? Will he be able to guard the secret that can destroy him and those he loves? Will Harshwardhan find the strength to overcome his grief and fulfill his promise? Will he triumph over the evil that surrounds him and evolve into an able heir? Will Pannalal be able to unravel the mystery that is hounding the Devigarh fort? Will Rajjo’s forbearance bring her the love she dreams of? Will the King succeed in getting rid of Eklavya or will he find himself trapped in his own web of deceit? Will Nandini Devi’s guileless laughter go unheard or will it reveal a vital clue?
What follows is a contemporary, edge-of-the-seat dramatic action thriller with a stellar ensemble cast that is scheduled to hit the theatres on February 16, 2007.
Eklavya marks the return of Vidhu Vinod Chopra who directs after a hiatus of seven years and who has made stellar films like ‘Parinda’, ‘1942 – A Love Story’ and Mission Kashmir and produced superhits like Munnabhai MBBS , Parineeta and Lage Raho Munnabhai

===Salaam-E-Ishq ===‘Tribute To Love’====

2007-02-11T23:21:00.000+05:30

Salman Khan .... Rahul

Priyanka Chopra .... Kkamini

John Abraham .... Ashutosh

Vidya Balan .... Tehzeeb

Akshaye Khanna .... Shiven

Ayesha Takia .... Gia

Govinda .... Raju Taxiwala

Shannon Esrechowitz .... Stephanie

Anil Kapoor .... Vinay Malhotra

Juhi Chawla .... Seema Malhotra

Sohail Khan .... Rustom Dastoor

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It is hard to cram six different love stories in a single movie. Nikhil Advani does it, but with relative success.
‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ works only in patches. The film is technically topnotch and its plot keeps flitting from one storyline to another in a free-flowing way. And Advani (the director) blends drama with humour and romance to try to come up with a wholesome entertainer. While humour in the film works, drama doesn’t. The second half desperately tries to bring a tear to your eye, but in vain.
This 3-hour-45 minute ‘Tribute To Love’ starts off quite grippingly. One after the other, the twelve characters are introduced. And the characters are colourful. There is a young married couple deeply in love with each other. There is a taxi driver who waits everyday for his dreamgirl, an angrezi mem, at the airport. There are two lovers with broken engagement. There is an item girl who would do anything to get a role into a Karan Johar film. There is a middle-aged man with unfulfilled desires. And there is a newly wed couple unable to consummate their marriage.
In this huge ensemble, ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ gets tangled in the second half. Of the six love stories only three manage to make an impact. The others more-or-less remain bland.
Here is a brief look at the six different tracks:
Ashutosh and Tehzeeb (John Abraham and Vidya Balan): His father was adamantly against him marrying a Muslim girl. But Ashutosh married Tehzeeb because he loved her, and still does. Things take a grave turn when Tehzeeb is badly injured in a train accident and loses her memory.
Shiven and Gia (Akshaye Khanna and Ayesha Takia): He is always late when it comes to meeting Gia. An impulsive Shiven gets engaged to his girlfriend, only to have second thoughts about marriage. He doesn’t want to get tied down. And when he somehow manages to break off the engagement, he has second thoughts again. Now he realizes what he has lost.
Raju Taxiwala and Stephenie (Govinda and Shannon Esrechowitz): Raju, a taxi driver, passes his days with the hope that one day his dream girl would walk out of the airport door and straight into his heart. That day does come when Stephanie arrives from New York. But she comes to search for her boyfriend who is about to marry “an Indian girl”.
Kkamini and Rahul (Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan): Kkamini is an item girl eager to change her image to get a role in a Karan Johar movie. She wants to be known as a “tragedy queen”. So she hatches up a fictitious story about an imaginary boyfriend named Rahul. But to her surprise, Rahul (in flesh and blood) walks into her lifebapiad and claims to be her boyfriend.
Vinay and Seema (Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla): Fifteen years after his marriage to Seema, Vinay finds his married life too monotonous and gets attracted to a beautiful, sensuous young woman. But his extra-marital fling is soon exposed to his loving wife.
Ramdayal and Phoolvati (Sohail Khan and Isha Koppikar): Ramdayal, a farmer from Haryana, is so eager to spend suhaag raat with his newly wed bride that he always ends up doing something wrong. One comic blunder follows another and their marriage remains unconsummated.
Out of these six tracks, the stories featuring Akshaye Khanna and Govinda are the most entertaining. While Akshaye is simply superb in playing an eccentric, commitment phobic lover, Govinda brings the house down with his trademark humour. Sohail Khan, too, is very funny. But his track with Isha Koppikar is relegated to the background for most part of the film.
The Salman-Priyanka track is bland and boring. It is a story without any head or toe. And to make things worse, both Salman and Priyanka have acted poorly. Salman’s performance is utterly superficial. Priyanka’s is mechanical.
The Anil Kapoor-Juhi Chawla track works solely because of performances. On the other hand, the track featuring John and Vidya lacks any depth. It merely ends up as the story of a man trying to revive the lost memory of his wife. Vidya is natural in her performance while John leaves much to be desired.
South African actress Stephanie is brilliant. She brings out a whole gamut of emotions in her character. The same goes for Ayesha Takia.
‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ could have been a much better film had it not got heavy and tiresome in the second half. Despite too many tear-jerking moments, there are hardly one or two scenes that genuinely stir your emotions. All the drama simply fails to make any impact.
Of the six stories, four meet together at a big fat Indian wedding in the end. Thankfully, there is some humour in the climax to send the audiences back home with a smile on their faces.
Watch it for Akshaye and Govinda.

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Rakht !!!

2007-02-10T00:35:00.000+05:30

Bipasha Basu .... Drishti
Sanjay Dutt .... Rahul
Dino Morea .... Sunny
Neha Dhupia .... Rhea
Sunil Shetty .... Mohit
Amrita Arora .... Natasha

Director : Mahesh Manjrekar

A suspence thriller with supernatural tones, pillared with a good range of stars from Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Bipasha Basu, Amrita Arora, Neha Dhupia, Dino Morea to camoes by Abhishek Bachchan and Yana Gupta, Rakht appears to have all the necesarry ingredients of a gripping Bollywood flick.

The strong point of the movie is its realistic presentation by director Mahesh Manjrekar and its colorful cast that keeps adding momentum to a farely decent story with their convincing portrayal of their characters.

Bipasha Basu plays a tarot card reader Drishti, who has an incredible abilty to predict future with her cards and forsee certain incidents much before they actually happen. She is a widow with an 8-year-old boy.

Among Drishti's clients is Rhea (Neha Dhupia), who is an abused wife seeking some help to find solution to her husband Sunny's (Dino Morea) violent behaviour. Drishti advises Rhea to leave her husband. Her advice only angers Rhea's husband and he threatens Drishti with dire consequences if she did not stop counselling his wife.

Mohit [Suniel Shetty] is a car mechanic, who is emotionally inclined towards Drishti. He is a slightly eccentric man because of his troubled childhood.

Rahul (an unsuitable name for Sanjay Dutt's character) is the principal of a school and is engaged to a beautiful woman named Natasha (Amrita Arora). Natasha is a fast girl with a sensuous demeanour. She is committed to Rahul. But then, she is also spotted in the embrace of a young man named Abhigyan (Himanshu Malik) at a party.

One night after a late party, Natasha goes missing. No one has any clue to where she is or what happened to her. Rahul seeks Drishti's help to find her.

As the threads of many stories come together before Drishti, and as more blood is spilled, the face of the killer begins to come together gradually before her till the finale when the killer stands exposed.

Rakht's strength lies in its progressive story that keeps engaging a viewer more and more as it moves towards a climax which, sorry to say, is a bit of a letdown. Besides this, Mahesh Manjrekar has made an overuse of background sounds and music, which, although skillfully composed by Sandeep Chowta, domiates the visuals at times rather than supporting it.

Convincing performances by Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu stand out among the fairly average acting by others. Sunil Shetty puts energy into some scenes with his presence, while Sanjay Dutt looks subdued.

On the whole, Rakht is a watchable flick with its shares of ups and downs. The movie's 'slow-than-usual' pace may not go well with certain viewers. Others will be impressed by the authencity with which Manjreakar creates an eerie and spooky ambience on the screen.

Good

Parineeta - The saga of love !!!

2007-02-06T22:32:00.000+05:30

The sepia tone of the visuals lends nostalgia. Brilliant display of acting skills by newcomer Vidya Balan and Saif Ali Khan captures the emotional complexities and nuances of the two central characters of Parineeta, which is director Pradeep Sarkar’s celluloid adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s story.
Having a gripping literary story at a movie’s base only puts more onus upon the director and the actors to justify a well-presented adaptation from book to the big screen. And director Pradeep Sarkar (his maiden attempt) and the actors deserve an acknowledgement for making a film that remains with you even when it is over.
The movie, set in the Bengal of 1960s, authentically captures the ambience and the vibrancy of those times.
Parineeta is primarily a simple story of human emotions. But it is not an ordinary story. The characters in the story are not simply black and white, good or evil, but have many gray shades that come about with the change of situations.
Central to the story is the character Lolita (Vidya), an orphan who grew up in her uncle’s house. A woman of natural beauty, she is at times vulnerable, at times fiery, at times giving, at times unyielding, at times affectionate and at times vain.
In her neighborhood lives Shekhar (Saif), her childhood friend. The love between the two is unspoken and often expressed in metaphors.
But Shekhar’s scheming father has plans to usurp the property of Lolita’s uncle. And when his plans almost seem succeeding, comes in Girish (Sanjay Dutt), a London-based businessman who bails Lolita’s uncle out of financial crisis.
Compared to the impulsive and erratic Shekhar, Girish is a self-assured man of pragmatism and calm composure. As he begins to make a place in Lolita’s heart, the jealous side of Shekhar comes to the fore. His jealousy and suspicions often find an aggressive expression. The result is a rift between the lovers.
Shekhar vows to renounce the thoughts of Lolita, abandons his music and decides to marry Gayatri (Dia Mirza), the daughter of his father’s business partner. Lolita, too, accepts a different destiny for herself and settles down.
But the emotions that have been stifled keep simmering until they boil out in the climax of this story.
Parineeta would not have been the same without Vidya Balan. The gorgeous debutante has a remarkable range of facial expressions and there is not a single scene in the movie when you can catch her acting. She is natural. She brings out the nuances and contradictions of her character well enough.
Saif Ali Khan deserves no less praise for his sensitive, underplayed performance. The character Shekhar that he plays is a very complex man – he is passionate, possessive, jealous, pampered, egoistic, father-dominated, musically inclined and more. And Saif captures it all with finesse.
Sanjay Dutt exudes warmth and maturity befitting his character Girish. Dia Mirza and Raima Sen play their roles with conviction.
Director Pradeep Sarkar justifies the timeless story by the eminent Bengali writer. Sarkar takes selective liberties – for instance, he sets his story in Kolkata of 1960s as against the city of the early 20th century in Chatterjee’s book – but overall, he brings out the essence of the story.

Worth a watch !!!

Guru !!!

2007-01-23T15:53:00.000+05:30

Starring

Abhishek Bachchan.... Guru Kant Desai
Aishwarya Rai .... Sujatha
Mithun Chakraborty.... Manikdas Guptha (Nanaji)
Madhavan.... Shyam Saxena
Vidya Balan.... Meenu
Mallika Sherawat.... Dancer

Director : Mani Ratnam
Producer : Mani Ratnam
Lyricist : Gulzar Musician : A R Rahman

What words shall be used to describe a cinematic masterpiece like ‘Guru’. Mani Ratnam’s flawless direction and Abhishek Bachchan’s superlative performance simply leave you speechless by the end of the film.

Firstly, ‘Guru’ will silence all those detractors who say that Abhishek doesn’t have a talent for acting. The actor not just surprises you, he shocks you with his extraordinary performance. Gosh, how come this hidden potential of Abhi never came forth before? Perhaps it is Ratnam who knows how to get the best, or even more than that, out of Abhi.

Secondly, Mani Ratnam, the master of his craft, arguably surpasses all his previous works in ‘Guru’. Apart from its technical soundness, ‘Guru’ tells a story that is deeply gripping and highly inspiring. It is the tale of a man who never gives up. The protagonist of the film is a perennial fighter and an incurable optimist.

Beginning in 1951, ‘Guru’ is the story of a boy who goes to Turkey to work in a petroleum company after failing his school exams back home in a small Gujarat village. With sheer hard work Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) rises in ranks and gets promotion. But Guru is a man of big vision. He quits his job in Turkey and comes back to Gujarat to start some business of his own.

So fixated is Guru about his dream that he marries Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai), a village girl, simply for the dowry sum that he could use to start his business.

With their minimal belongings, Guru, his wife and her brother go to Mumbai to start some business. By hook or by crook, by persuasion and by his sheer charm, Guru overcomes all hurdles and progresses in leaps and bounds. He is unstoppable. And this attitude of Guru doesn’t go well with some people.

Manikdas Gupta or Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty) runs a newspaper called The Independent. He likes Guru’s determination and straightforwardness. He almost begins treating Guru like his own son. But when Guru uses Nanaji’s newspaper to achieve his business motive, Nanaji vows to stop the unstoppable Guru.

Journalist Shyam Saxena (Madhavan), who works for Nanaji, uses his power of pen to bring Guru down and expose his ‘truth’.

At the same time, Nanaji’s handicap daughter, Meenu (Vidya Balan), who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is the only one who loves Guru unconditionally.

The war between Guru and Nanaji heats up as Guru’s public venture company, Shakti Corporation, increases in size and proportion to become one of the best polyester making companies in India. It is a war that will claim much from Guru. But the perennial fighter in him succeeds in the end.

A film like ‘Guru’ has not been seen on the Indian screen before. With its powerful story, awesome performances, melodious music (A R Rahman), splendid cinematography (Rajiv Menon) and skilled direction, the movie leaves you spellbound. However, two songs in quick succession at the film’s very beginning do make for a bumpy start.

The story picks up when Guru goes to Mumbai where he starts his clothes business. How this visionary with an indomitable spirit fights against all odds and succeeds, makes for a riveting watch. And full credit goes to Abhishek Bachchan who has given the best performance of his career so far. His Guru is full of energy, vivacity and optimism.

What’s commendable is the conviction with which Abhi gets into the skin of his character. His bulky frame moves with a swagger, his penetrating gaze reflects his shrewd business acumen and yet there is a vulnerable side to Guru that shines through now and then. Abhi’s performance is particularly excellent in the second half, when his business begins to sink and he is paralyzed. His monologue in the courtroom (with his lip twitched and his one arm incapacitated) makes him truly deserving of an award.

For the first time, ‘Guru’ offers something to write about chemistry between Abhishek and Aishwarya. There is almost an electric vibe between the two actors and it could verily be seen in the film. Apart from this, Ash’s performance, too, is commendable.

Mithun Chakraborty has a domineering presence and is effective in his performance. Madhavan and Vidya Balan are very natural. Mallika Sherawat provides her brand of entertainment at the film’s beginning.

To sum it up, ‘Guru’ is one of the best movies to have come out of Bollywood recently. It is a perfect treat for the dreamers. A must-watch. A gem of a film.

Dus bahene karke le gayi Dil !!!

2007-01-20T08:59:00.000+05:30

Starring

Sanjay Dutt .... D.I.G. Siddhant

Sunil Shetty .... Dan

Shilpa Shetty .... Aditi

Abhishek Bachchan .... Shashank

Zayed Khan .... Aditya

Esha Deol .... Neha

Dressed in black, the quartet - Abhishek, Sanju, Zayed and oh-so-shapely Shilpa - almost look like models flaunting their zany outfits, besides some attitude, of course. They are not. In Dus, they are the members of an Anti-Terrorist Cell. They are the people who diffuse bombs, take on the terrorists and thwart possible attacks.

Anubhav Sinha's movie Dus is a slick product - made with heavy budget and huge star cast. To have as many as eight known Bollywood stars in a movie is no small feat. But to relegate a movie's story to the backdrop and to give precedence to what is secondary - style, action, stunts, dresses, visual appeal - is a big flaw. That is what handicaps Dus.

As the movie begins with a dance number Dus Bahane, it doesn’t take much time for you to realize that on offer is a celluloid
feast, stodgy with breath-taking stunts but bereft of a substantial story. Logic, rationale and realism are simply not to be
expected.

The ATC, led by Dutt, is deft in handling terror situations. The swaggering Abhishek is the dude who maintains his cool in
the dangerous of situations and the catty Shilpa can surprise the bad guys with her martial arts skills and a kick into their
butts. Zayed plays the man who is a bit flippant in diffusing bombs, but luck, luckily, stays on his side all the time.

The dashing foursome get a mission to stop a terrorist from unleashing terror in Canada when the Indian PM visits there. No one has seen the terrorist. What they know about him is his name - Jamwal.

Abhishek and Zayed get orders to reach Canada and nab the bad guy. There, they meet Esha Deol and a Canadian Cop, Sunil Shetty, who eventually help them in their mission.
Just when the story seemed to be gathering some momentum, director Anubhav Sinha decides to throw in some romance. Hence the audience are subjected to the muted, unexpressed sparks between Esha and Abhishek. But the romantic interlude gets extended with the Sunil Shetty-Raima Sen track and also Zayed's daydreams of his 'darling' Dia Mirza.

By the way, the guys are supposed to be on a mission not on dates.
As the D-Day draws closer, the ATC guys pull up their socks. And it is just in the nick of time that Sanju (who arrives in Canada later) figures out who the terrorist is. But no reasons are given as to how Sanju came to know the terrorist. Perhaps some sort of super-intuition.
Despite the absence of story, there indeed are certain things about Dus worth appreciating.

Director Anubhav Sinha tells the movie's story at an electric pace. Dus is replete with high quality action scenes and stunts, previously unseen in Bollywood films. The background music by Ranjit Barot adds the extra punch.

However, the climax takes the fizz away, firstly because it is long-drawn, secondly the way the identity of the “much dreaded terrorist” is revealed lets you down.

Abhishek Bachchan is the one who stands out in the colorful cast ensemble of Dus. Sanjay Dutt looks intense, but age has begun to show on his face and body language. Zayed Khan is amusing in his clumsy antics. Sunil Shetty hardly leaves any impact except looking dashing.

Among the ladies, Shilpa Shetty is unmatchable. Her sylph-like figure is a constant distraction from what is going on the
screen. Raima Sen is oddly cast while Esha Deol gets a few moments to display her histrionics.
All said, Dus is a movie that will appeal to those who dig action thrillers, no matter what the story is. Brawns, bullets, bombs, high-speed chases, pyrotechnics - all is on the platter in Dus.

The romance, in-between, is a sore thumb.

Fast but not moving.

Aapna Sapna Money Money!!!

2007-01-19T01:01:00.000+05:30

Starring

Ritesh Deshmukh.... Krishna
Celina Jaitley.... Saania Badnaam
Koena Mitra.... Julie
Jackie Shroff.... Danny Carlos
Shreyas Talpade.... Arjun
Sunil Shetty.... Namdev Mane
Riya Sen.... Shivani

Here comes yet another slapstick comedy filled with madcap characters in search of hidden diamonds. Sangeeth Sivan’s movie ‘Apna Sapna Money Money’ is a corny, crowded entertainer that banks majorly on crass and crude humour.Wit is not something you should expect from a movie like ‘Money Money’.

The comedy in the movie is juvenile and at times even childish. Yet there are some sequences that turn out to be immensely entertaining. These sequences mostly come from Ritesh Deshmukh, the young star with a very natural flair for comedy.The movie has no concrete story to write home about. Even the plot keeps veering off the track due to the presence of too many characters in the story. In this muddle, good, laughable humour flashes through intermittently, but the movie gets heavy and begins to drag as it approaches the end. The film is full of several wacky characters. There is an underworld don (Jackie Shroff) gone bankrupt. His moll Sania Badnaam (Celina Jaitley) has a bag of diamonds that could revive his fortunes again.

There is a rogue Kishan (Ritesh Deshmukh) with a natural gift to dupe people without slightest of compunction. There is a mechanic Arjun (Shreyas Talpade) head-over-heels in love with Shivani (Riya Sen), daughter of an overprotective father Pandit Shastri (Anupam Kher).

There is a chief (Chunky Pandey) of a Nepali gang baying for Kishan’s blood. There is a tabela owner (Rajpal Yadav) who imitates Amitabh Bachchan from movie ‘Sarkar’. There is an honest cop (Sunil Shetty) out to catch a bunch of criminals.In this big crowd, the movie’s story gets lost somewhere as Kishan is smitten with dancer Julie (Koena Mitra), and his cousin (Shreyas) falls for a stubborn pandit’s daughter (Riya). Kishan helps his cousin in winning his ladylove and at the same time also puts his enemies off his trail by assuming different get-ups.He slips into the guise of a woman to play his cousin’s aunt Sania. Unfortunately, Pandit Shastri falls for him (disguised as her). And the diamonds that everyone is after is closer to Kishan than he suspects. A series of slapstick situations crop up as one character after another joins the mad race to find the booty that is worth crores.

The prominent flaw of ‘Money Money’ is that its humour is very generic. The movie’s script is like mishmash of old, outdated jokes given a new tenor by situational twists and turns. The movie’s music (by Pritam) further adds to the woes of a viewer.However, some actors stand above the film’s ordinary script and make the movie watchable. Ritesh Deshmukh is a laugh riot in his various getups. His comic timing, his facial reactions, his expressions and the very tone of his dialogues evoke laughter. Rajpal Yadav and Chunky Pandey also chip in moments of quality humour. Anupam Kher is very entertaining. The actresses (Celina, Koena and Riya) basically add glamour and oomph to the proceedings. Sunil Shetty is likeable.

Jackie Shroff is over-the-top.On the whole, ‘Apna Sapna Money Money’ is no great shakes. But in the confusing melee of its madcap characters, you do find some real good moments of hearty laughter.In short, ‘Money Money’ is a good timepass entertainer if you don’t value your time and money too much.

Kabul Express!!!

2007-01-19T00:56:00.000+05:30

Kabul Express’ is an engaging thriller by documentary filmmaker Kabir Khan. The movie tells an interesting and thought-provoking tale against the backdrop of a country ravaged by war. Without falling prey to the stereotypes of commercial cinema, Kabir Khan attempts to bring the hard-hitting realities of Afghanistan to light. The story is set in the time when the Taliban were being wiped out by the Americans and the Afghans after the 9/11 attacks.

The movie does have a slightly anti-Pak flavour and it also goes into America bashing. But these seem to have been incorporated to bring the truth to light. The ruins of Afghanistan are testimony to 22 years of incessant wars that destroyed the country since the Soviet invasion. The Taliban hunted by the Afghans and betrayed by Pakistan mirrors the shift in the policies of the nation that once supported them.

In this complex setting, Kabir Khan tells the story of five individuals and what transpires in a period of two days. Cameraman Jai (Arshad Warsi) and journalist Suhel (John Abraham) enter Afghanistan to cover the war and get an interview with a Talibani. With the help of their local guide and driver Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum), the two set out in Toyota Jeep called Kabul Express in search of their big story.

After a series of adventures and close brushes with death, the trio meets an American photojournalist Jessica (Linda Arsenio).The quartet is then kidnapped by an escaping Pakistani soldier Imran (Salman Shahid) who had been operating for Taliban before the US attack. Now he is on the run to get back to his country. As the five set out on their perilous journey to the Afghan-Pakistan border, the hostility between them gives way to trust. They debate and discuss the situation in the region. Eventually, Jai, Suhel, Khyber and Jessica help Imran reach his country. But there is a surprise in store for everyone.‘Kabul Express’ has a raw and rugged feel that verily complements the film’s story and setting.

The movie has several nail-biting moments, all of which are peppered by impeccable humour by Arshad Warsi. In fact, Warsi completely overshadows John Abraham in the film. The latter’s presence seems primarily to lend some star value to the movie. The same goes for Linda Arsenio too. If only Kabir Khan had developed John and Linda’s characters better and made them essential to the plot.Salman Shahid gives an emphatic performance as a former Talibani on the run. Hanif Hum Ghum too is effective.

On the whole, ‘Kabul Express’ is a well-crafted and technically sound film. The only flaw is that Kabir Khan doesn’t give depth to some characters in the story. Otherwise, the movie entertains you and leaves you in a reflective mood.

Chocolate!!!

2007-01-19T00:50:00.000+05:30

Starring: Anil Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Irrfan Khan, Emran Hashmi, and Sushma Reddy

Director: Vivek Agnihotri

Music: Preetam

Producer: Ram Gopal Varma, Anil Kapoor

CHOCOLATE also reminds you of Vijay Anand's classic JEWEL THIEF [Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand, Vyjayantimala, Tanuja] in terms of narrating the story. The story is told in two different time frames: In the present and looking back at the events. Also, the persons attempting to put the missing links in CHOCOLATE are con men themselves, it’s similar to Ashok Kumar’s character in JEWEL THIEF.

Krish (Anil Kapoor) is a sharp lawyer who always wins the case. There is Rocker (Suniel Shetty) who is obsessed with love. Nothing gets in his way. Pipi (Irfan Khan) is a thinker who always prefers to follow the right path. We also have Tubby (Arshad Warsi) who is a Casanova, while Sim (Tanushree Dutta) is a seductress with a dubious past. Suniel Shetty as Rocker There is also Devaa (Emran Hashmi), a passionate musician... while Mansoon (Sushma Reddy) is a charming out-of-luck journalist trying to make a name for herself in the media world.

Director Vivek Agnihotri knows the power of technique and there’s no denying that CHOCOLATE is a refined product. The execution of a few sequences deserves good marks, but Agnihotri is saddled by a script that the average Indian cinegoer wouldn’t comprehend at all.
Irrfan Khan is convincing as a man caught in someone else's mess and Emraan and Arshad are very bankable. Anil Kapoor gets into the skin of the lawyer, but sometimes overdoes it while trying to lend a tinge of eccentricity to his character. Tanushree Dutta, who has a sufficiently meaty role in the film, has the goods to carry off the role of a conniving sex goddess, but she could brush up on her acting skills. Sushma Reddy's character is cutting-edge journalist, clumsy klutz, scatterbrain and sexy woman all rolled into one.

Cinematography [Attar Singh Saini] is splendid. Suniel Shetty puts in a sincere effort. Arshad Warsi and Emraan Hashmi, competent actors both, are sidelined completely. Sushma Reddy is cute, but doesn’t have much to do.

On the whole, CHOCOLATE is body beautiful, minus soul.

Smallest Kuran !!!

2007-01-02T14:12:00.001+05:30

This is World's smallest kuran !!!

U need a microscope to read this kuran !!!

2007-01-02T14:12:00.000+05:30

!!!!!!!! GHOSTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are all around us.You don’t believe ME??? !!!

THEN GET PREPARED TO BELIEVE!!! LOOK AT THE PICTURE BELOW

Group Captain Victor Goddard kept this rather strange picture. The photo was taken following the last mission of this group. In the photo appears the face of an airman who was killed several days before the photo was taken, when he walked into the rotating propellor of a plane. Obviously he did not want to miss out on the group photo. click on the image for a clear view

In November 1995 a fire destroyed the Town Hall of Wem in the UK.. Tony O´Rahilly, a photographer was called to the scene and took the picture above. When he developed it, he noticed the silhouette of a young boy or girl. The ghostly shape that appears in the photo was identified as that of a young girl who in 1977 had started a large fire in the same building and perished in the flames.

A family photo from the 19th Century..... ...It seems that the six year old great-great-great granddaughter who had died 2 months before the photo was taken, did not want to be left out of it!!!

This is a photo of Tracy who was born on 13 June 1975, or to be more exact Friday the 13th. She caught meningitis and was rushed to emergency by her parents where prompt attentio saved her life. The photo was taken in 1979, nine months after, and two days following another incident that nearly took her life away again. Can you see the "person" who is alongside Tracy? The "person" seems to have an arm around her protecting her from the back. Some say that it is just an optical effect from the lens reflection. 23 year on, Tracy says that the "person" who appears behind her could have resulted from a fault in the camera, but her parents swear it is her guardian angel.

The girl in this shot thought there was nobody else on her left side......and do you think she is alone???
THIS ONE IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!

The following photo was exhibited as evidence in a police investigation into a very strange incident. It resulted from the case of a man who decided to take photos in some caves (Khaimah) in spite of being warned against doing so by the local residents.Around midday the photographer called the police, having heard horrible screams inside one of the many caverns when he was taking photos. Some hours later the police discovered the remains of the man, totally dismembered, but with his camera intact beside him.When the police developed the film, they were shocked. For lack of further proof they decided that his death had been caused by some wild animal. Have a look at the “wild animal”...Whatever you may think, strange things do happen......

Do you know who is beside you!!!

Bhagam Bhag !!!

2006-12-31T20:17:00.000+05:30

Starring

Paresh Rawal - Theatre Group Owner

Govinda - The Play's Hero

Akshay Kumar - The Play's Villain

It is certainly not the best of Priyadarshan. But ‘Bhagam Bhag’ still makes for an entertaining watch. The film’s crazy plot, filled with comic chaos and confusion, is its main USP. On top of it, Akshay Kumar shows his impeccable flair for comedy.

The basic formula of ‘Bhagam Bhag’ is the same as any other Priyadarshan movie. The story’s central characters try to outsmart each other, but wind up in a situation where they are hunted by a number of other over-the-top characters. There are mistaken identities, a murder, an underhand plot, chaos and commotion.

Bunty (Akshay Kumar) and Babla (Govinda) are the two main actors in a dance troupe run by Champak Seth (Paresh Rawal). The two actors can’t keeps their eyes and hands off their heroine Anjali (Tanushree Dutta), who, tired of their Casanova ways, eventually quits the group just when they are about to leave for an important show in London.

In London, Bunty and Babla search dedicatedly for a new heroine, but end up in police custody after a drug dealer gives them Heroin, in stead.

After being let off, Bunty meets a strange girl with suicidal tendencies. The girl is Munni (Lara Dutta). He decides to cast her as his heroine in the show. Bunty also falls in love with her.

But Munni meets with an accident and recovers her lost memory. It turns out that she is Nisha and is already married to someone called Vikram (Arbaaz Khan).

In the subsequent reels, Nisha apparently commits suicide and Vikram is murdered. And Bunty, Babla and Champak Seth are the prime suspects.

Kitschy slapstick is cocktailed with genuine humour in a delectable way in ‘Bhagam Bhag’. Besides the main players, a number of side characters provide ample moments of comic relief : be it Rajpal Yadav as the taxi driver, or Shakti Kapoor as the drunk with very short memory, or Sharat Saxena and his boss as the bird-brained drug dealers.

But none matches the superb comic timing of Akshay Kumar. The actor is relentlessly getting better and better at comedy. Right from the first scene when he prods Govinda into telling about the hot moment shared with actress (Tanushree), to the second half when he speaks in broken English with an air travel company executive, Akshay is simply superlative. He is the reason you can watch this movie.

Surprisingly, Govinda is restrained throughout the film. Save for one or two scenes, he is strictly okay. Even Paresh Rawal fails to offer much to laugh at. In comparison, Shakti Kapoor and Rajpal Yadav have some better lines.

Lara Dutta plays her part well. Jackie Shroff as the London cop is effective. Arbaaz Khan, too, is okay.

All said, ‘Bhagam Bhag’ is a good timepass flick. It offers nothing outstanding or extraordinary. It entertains you for three hours and leaves you with smiles.

Kal Ho Na ho !!!

2006-12-31T11:24:00.001+05:30

Karan Johar-SRK combination works for the third time as the two come up with a film that begins on a lighthearted note but ends with a climax that will reduce viewers to tears. Nikhil Advani deserves all praises for telling the story without making it mushy and yet not compromising on the emotional quotient at the same time.

The story revolves around a happy-go-luck fellow who spreads happiness and believes in giving to others without demanding anything back. But as is said that behind every smile there lies an unshed tear, so is the case with the film’s protagonist Aman. And then there is a character of a gorgeous girl who seems to be aging before her time until Aman comes into her life. In the sidelines is a jolly guy (Saif) who has a golden heart but cannot impress upon girls. The proceedings are fine and everything seems hunky-dory until the relationship between the three is tested by the harsh realities of life.

Shahrukh Khan towers over everyone in the film with his kaleidoscopic performance. He brings smiles to many a face in the first half and he is the one two draws them to tears in the latter half of the movie.

Preity Zinta looks stunning throughout the movie and delivers a noteworthy performance. Saif too stands in equal stead and proves his salt as an actor. Jaya Bachchan, as usual, spellbinds the viewers with her histrionics.

On the whole Kal Ho Naa Ho is a healthy entertainer that will appeal to family crowds and would be a must watch for viewers of all ages.

Illusions even trick your brain !!!

2006-12-22T20:41:00.000+05:30

Don't beleive ?????? Check it out yourself !!!

If u like these just post a feedback !!!

Babul !!! A movie which u'll definately like...

2006-12-22T07:55:00.000+05:30

Even a regressive subject can have its appeal if presented in the right way. Ravi Chopra does just that in his latest movie ‘Baabul’, which is the story of a man going against traditions to help his widowed daughter-in-law find a new life.

The film is a wholesome package with an entertaining first half and an emotionally moving second half. Thankfully, the movie, for its most part, steers clear of soppy melodrama without compromising the emotive quotient. And the high point is its climax, which is swift and to the point.

‘Baabul’is based on a very pertinent theme. A woman emotionally torn apart after the death of her loving husband is shown the hope of a new life by her father-in-law. The movie questions the traditions following which people turn their backs to life. In that sense, ‘Baabul’ is a pro-life film.

Amitabh Bachchan plays Balraj, a rich businessman, a loving husband and a friendly father. He, his wife Shobhna (Hema Malini) and their son Avinash (Salman Khan) make a picture perfect family.

Avinash falls in love with Mili (Rani Mukherjee), a painter. The two get married and are blessed with a son named Ansh.

Tragedy strikes when Avinash is killed in an accident. Mili is left devastated and utterly alone. While Balraj and Shobhna find a little solace in their grandchild, the pain of losing Avinash is too strong for Mili to bear.

Seeing her in pain, Balraj decides to bring colours back into her life. He approaches Mili’s friend Rajat (John Abraham) who has always loved her but never expressed his feelings. A musician settled in Europe, Rajat is willing to marry Mili.

But this decision of Balraj meets with a strong opposition from his own from the family. His wife doesn’t approve of this decision. And the stiffest resistance comes from Balraj’s elder brother Balwant (Om Puri), who holds age-old traditions above everything else.

Will Balraj be able to get Mili remarried? The movie’s conclusion will certainly leave you with moist eyes.

‘Baabul’ rests on the strong and dependable shoulders of acting giants like Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee. And none of the two disappoint. Mr. Bachchan is simply superlative in his finely nuanced performance. He makes it so easy for the viewers to empathize with the dilemma of his character. He is particularly compelling in the sequence when he talks to his dead son while gazing at the stars in the night sky.

Rani Mukherjee is deft at expressing emotions. Like a chameleon she transforms the image of a vivacious and happy woman in the first half to the mourning and lovelorn widow in the latter reels. Particularly heart wrenching is the scene in which she dances with Salman’s pullover in the rain before crying out uncontrollable tears.

Hema Malini has relatively lesser footage in the film but she cuts a perfect image of grace and tenderness. Salman Khan exudes natural warmth whenever he comes into a scene. On the other hand, John Abraham is ill at ease for most of his part. His two scenes with Salman are poorly enacted. Om Puri is emphatic but over-the-top at times.

Ravi Chopra deserves credit for making a film that effectually tugs at your heart. He brings a notable contrast in the two halves of the film. The first half is funny and the second is sombre. The costumes and sets are colourful in the first half. But they turn pale in the second. Even the cinematography has been used to the desired effect.

Although the movie seems to become a little heavy on sentimentality at times, the conclusion of the story more than compensates for such glitches.

‘Baabul’ will definitely appeal to the family crowds. Even the young ‘Dhoom generation’ can find the movie eminently watchable.

Casino Royale (2006)

2006-11-25T07:19:00.000+05:30

United States/United Kingdom/Czech Republic, 2006
U.S. Release Date: 11/17/06 (wide)
India release : 11/17/2006
Running Length: 2:24
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence, sexual situations, nudity)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino
Director: Martin Campbell
Screenplay: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis, based on the novel by Ian Fleming
Cinematography: Phil Meheux
Music: David Arnold
U.S. Distributor: MGM
Casino Royale (2006)

When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond for Goldeneye, much was made about how the franchise was being "modernized." In reality, the only apparent changes were cosmetic. Brosnan's 007 was easily connected to the character previously played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton. With the ascension of Daniel Craig to the gun, tux, martini, and license to kill, seismic changes have occurred. This is no longer the James Bond we know from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. Welcome to the new world of MI6's most storied agent.

The purpose of Casino Royale is to "re-boot" the franchise. Craig isn't succeeding Brosnan; he's re-inventing the role. As far as this movie is concerned, nothing in the previous 20 entries has happened. This is Bond's "origin" story and the only thin bit of continuity is Judi Dench's return as Madam M. Forget everything you think you know about 007. For years now, the Bond formula has been drowning in a sea of rip-offs and pretenders, each more over-the-top than its predecessor. In order to retain a market niche, the Bond franchise had to strike out in a different direction - something less cartoonish and closer to the Ian Fleming source novels. It's impossible to say where the filmmakers will take Bond from here, but Casino Royale hints that it may be in a more down-to-earth direction than we're accustomed to.

What's missing? Quite a bit, actually. Until its rousing introduction during the end credits, the "James Bond Theme" is heard sparingly, during brief, subdued passages. The signature line of "Bond, James Bond" keeps us waiting. There are no gadgets - in fact, there's no Q. Nor is there any Moneypenny. There's action, but it's surprisingly low-key (at least for Bond). Absent are the over-the-top, gravity-defying stunts that have characterized 007 movies over the years. This time, things get brutal. Not only is there a nasty fight in which Bond beats the crap out of a bad guy (he has to kill two people to get his double-zero status, but the deaths don't have to be neat) but our hero ends up on the receiving end of some vicious treatment. One can't imagine Connery, Dalton, or especially Moore going through that ordeal.

The plot follows Fleming's story a lot more closely than the original Casino Royale (a pathetic and uneven spoof) did. It's early days for Bond. Having completed the requirements for graduation to the elite level, he has been assigned 007, although M is convinced he's not ready. His first assignment is to track down one of the most elusive worldwide suppliers of terrorist money. After following the clues, which first take him to the Bahamas then to Miami, Bond learns the identity of his quarry: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who's about to enter an exclusive poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bankrolled by MI6, Bond enters against Le Chiffre, with accountant Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) watching the money. As the action at the tables heats up, Bond finds himself in trouble away from them as Le Chiffre and some of his associates try to eliminate the British agent.

It has been a long time since Bond has been this human. Not since On Her Majesty's Secret Service - the last time he fell in love - have we seen this side of the super agent. It's s curious thing to see Bond develop deep feelings for Vesper. We're used to him treating women like disposable commodities. Oh, he has affection for them, but love is not in his vocabulary. Yet there's no better way to humanize a superhero than to make him fall in love. We have seen that with Superman and Spider-Man. Now we see it with 007. This aspect of the movie is one reason why Casino Royale is a cut above anything we have gotten from the Bondmakers in decades.

The plot is oddly constructed, and plays out in three clearly defined acts. The first is the most like a traditional Bond film, with James hopping from country to country, engaging in a meaningless romance (with Caterina Murino), and chasing after two henchmen (a foot chase that involves scaffolding and a rush to stop a bomb at Miami Airport). Act II takes place mainly at the poker table. Surprisingly, there's a lot of tension even though there's not much action (except a staircase fracas), and the movie uses this segment to build the romantic tension between Vesper and Bond. I won't say much about the third act, except that it goes some unexpected places and initially seems disconnected with what precedes it.

For Daniel Craig, this is a triumphant debut. Not since early Connery have we seen a Bond this magnetic. Craig manages to show us both the human and the inhuman sides of Bond, and the portrayal is free of fatuousness. This Bond isn't beyond uttering the occasional quip, but when he does so, there's not a lot of humor in the delivery. Not since the closing moments of On Her Majesty's Secret Service have we seen such a vulnerable 007. While there's always a certain sadness associated with waving goodbye to a departing actor, Craig's performance makes us ask "Pierce Who?"

With everything else changing, one wonders whether it might have been time to bring someone else in to play M. That's not a knock on Judi Dench - no one can deliver M's acerbic one-liners like her - but if the intent is to make a clean break, why is she here? Eva Green, still best known for taking off her clothing in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, is the right mix of hard and soft as Vesper - it's not hard to see how she could beguile Bond. Mads Mikkelsen is intense enough to pull off the villain role even though he lacks the megalomaniacal bent evidenced by most Bond bad guys. Additional support comes from Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, the British agent based in Montenegro, and Jeffrey Wright as old friend Felix Leiter.

It's interesting to note that the radical revising of Bond is being done by the "usual" team. It's not as if an entirely new group was brought in for the "re-boot." The producers continue to be Michael G. Wilson and Barbara (daughter of Cubby) Broccoli. The writers are Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (with an assist from Paul "he's everywhere these days" Haggis), who were involved in scripting the last two Brosnan movies. Director Martin Campbell oversaw Goldeneye with Phil Meheux as his cinematographer. And David Arnold has been composing Bond scores since he took over from John Barry in the '90s. (The title song, "You Know My Name," which Arnold co-wrote with Chris Cornell, sounds eerily like something by Barry.)

My hope is that Casino Royale has not only re-invented James Bond, but made him relevant for the 21st century. The target audience has shifted. Although there's nothing in Casino Royale that will exclude teenagers, this 007 is aimed squarely at adults. The November release date is also perfect - the film is almost too dark and serious for the kind of lighthearted, mindless fun we associate with summer blockbusters. In recent years, I have come to each new James Bond movie with a series of ingrained expectations. For the most part, the Brosnan films met them across the board. Casino Royale defies many of them, and I couldn't be happier.

Laage Raho Munna Bhai !!!

2006-11-25T07:16:00.000+05:30

Starring
Sanjay Dutt .... Munna Bhai - Murali Prasad Sharma
Arshad Warsi .... Circuit
Boman Irani .... Lucky Singh
Vidya Balan .... RJ Jahnvi
Dia Mirza .... Simran
Jimmy Shergill .... Victor D'souza

Director : Rajkumar Hirani
Producer : Vidhu Vinod Chopra

'Lage Raho Munnabhai' Simply Superb

Bole to hats off to Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani for making a film that is more than just a rip-roaring comedy. ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ makes you laugh, makes you cry and, parallel to all the entertainment, it gives a message that sticks in the mind. To say it in Munnabhai’s lingo – it creates “chemical locha” in the brain.

It is next to impossible not to like Munnabhai and his sidekick Circuit in their second innings. Almost three years after the loveable duo cured the incurable in Munnabhai MBBS , the street-savvy taporis find themselves face to face with Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology in ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’.

As

Munna – the goon for whom breaking bones and abducting people is the way of life – comes face to face with Bapu, he discovers that it takes more courage to turn the other cheek than to hit back. Munna discovers that nothing works like compassion and non-violence. Following Mahatma Gandhi’s way, Munna not only triumphs over his enemies, but he also wins the love of the woman he so very longs for.

Once again, Sanjay Dutt plays the foul-mouthed, uneducated, but extremely good-hearted goon, and Arshad Warsi plays his inseparable friend.

While Circuit is busy doing abductions and forcing people from their properties, Munna spends his days listening to RJ Jhanvi (Vidya Balan) on the radio. Munna, hopelessly smitten with Jhanvi, gets an opportunity to be on her show after answering a number of questions on Mahatma Gandhi. However, to conceal his real identity, Munna lies to her that he is a professor of History. Impressed by the history teacher who speaks tapori language just to relate to today’s youths, Jhanvi invites Munna to her house to give a lecture on Gandhiji to her ‘children’.

Jhanvi runs a home called Second Innings in which old people who have been left by their children get a chance to restart their lives afresh. It is these old people whom Jhanvi calls her ‘children’.

Now, Munna is in a fix. To know about Gandhiji’s life and ideology, he goes to a library and begins reading books on the iconic figure for three days continuously. After three days, a miracle happens. Gandhiji appears and start talking to Munna.

Startled to see Gandhiji, Munna goes to a shrink and is told that there is some chemical locha (problem) in his brain.

However, Munna befriends Gandhiji, gives an excellent lecture at Jhanvi’s home and makes a place in everyone’s hearts, including Jhanvi’s.

Trouble starts when a builder named Lucky Singh (Boman Irani) wants to take over Jhanvi’s property. Ironically, both Munna and Circuit work for Lucky.

As the greedy builder makes his manipulative moves and acquires the property, Munna becomes his foe.

But with Gandhiji by his side, Munna renounces his old belligerent self and wins over his enemy in the most unexpected way.

Like in ‘Munnabhai MBBS’, in this film too Munna does the Good-Samaritan acts in his typical tapori style. Guided by Gandhiji, he doles out advices to people on Jhanvi’s radio show. He helps a financially ruined youth named Victor (Jimmy Shergill) to confess a bitter truth to his (Victor’s) father. He helps a runaway bride named Simran (Dia Mirza) to return to her father’s home in spite of the fact that the father happens to be none other than Lucky Singh.

And despite all his goodness, there are situations when Munna is scorned by people and labeled mentally disturbed. But armed with Gandhiji’s ideology, he triumphs in the end.

‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ is a film that keeps you riveted to the screen from the very opening reels to its conclusion. The most exceptional thing about the film is the way it blends comedy with emotional moments.

Arshad Warsi’s impeccable comic timing, coupled with Sanjay Dutt’s light-humored slapstick, promises laughs aplenty for the viewers. And there are moments when the duo drives you to tears. For instance, the sequence when Sanjay slaps Arshad and later goes to apologize. Arshad proves in this sequence that he is not just an excellent comedian, but also a deft actor when it comes to serious moments.

Another good thing about the film is that Gandhiji’s ideology in it never sounds preachy. The film rather shows its soundness in a practical way. Dilip Prabhavalkar plays Gandhiji’s role in the most convincing way. He almost has an enlightened smile on his face throughout the movie.

‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ doesn’t merely end as a Sanjay Dutt film. Although the actor takes to his role like a fish to the water and delivers yet another brilliant performance, ample footage is given to Vidya Balan, Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani and other actors as well.

Vidya Balan looks angelic with her mystifying smile, free-flowing hair and charming persona. Boman Irani is highly credible as a loud-mouthed Punjabi. Jimmy Shergill and Dia Mirza get their moments of limelight. Abhishek Bachchan makes a one-minute cameo.

To sum it up, ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ is one of the best movies to have come out of Bollywood this year. The script is exceptionally well written by Hirani and Abhijat Joshi. The background music complements the screenplay and the songs are not the least intrusive. Rajkumar Hirani’s direction yokes together all the elements of movie-making into a cohesive, meaningful and, above all, entertaining package called ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’.

The film is a top-notch entertainer. There is not a single dull moment in it. A must-watch.

Carry on forever, Munnabhai.

Krrish !!!

2006-11-25T06:52:00.000+05:30

Starring
Hrithik Roshan .... Krrish Mehra
Priyanka Chopra .... Priya
Rekha .... Sonia Mehra
Naseeruddin Shah .... Dr. Siddharth Arya

Director : Rakesh Roshan
Producer : Rakesh Roshan
Musician : Rajesh Roshan

Music Album : Krrish

The wait was worth it. More than three years after Koi Mil Gaya , the Roshans return with the movie’s sequel, ‘Krrish’, a thoroughly entertaining film with Hrithik Roshan as its breath and soul.

Trust me, there is no other ‘super’ star who can pull off the role of a superhero as convincingly as Hrithik has done. The actor has the right mix of brawns, youthful exuberance, grit and emotional vulnerability required for the role. He can be romantic, and he can be stern. He can yield, and he can be unforgiving. By large, ‘Krrish’ remains a Hrithik Roshan movie. But that is not to undermine the performances by Priyanka Chopra, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah.

The

legacy of Rohit – the imbecilic youth who transforms into a superhero and a genius after meeting an alien in ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ – has passed on to his son Krishna, who lives with his grandmother (Rekha) after the death of his parents. Young Krishna’s prodigious abilities, his physical strength and mental intelligence astounds his teachers and other children of his age. But his grandmother doesn’t want the world to know about Krishna’s superpowers. So she takes him to a nondescript village in the mountains where Krishna grows in the lap of nature into a strong, handsome, brawny young man (Hrithik).

He runs faster than his horse, jumps long distances in a single leap and climbs the mountains like a spider moving through its web. Only few are aware of Krishna’s qualities. These qualities make him special. But they also make him a sort of outcast among normal people.

Then, love enters Krishna’s life. It literally falls from the open skies into his lap as he rescues a wide-eyed, city-bred girl (Priyanka) from her faulty parachute landing atop a tree.

Their first meeting, as they keep sliding down branch after branch, with the girl in Krishna’s arms, has been shot very beautifully.

It turns out that the girl is Priya and she is a part of a group of adventure seekers from Singapore.

A few pranks follow between Krishna and Priya and her campmates. The campers also get to see Krishna’s super-abilities. While Krishna shows Priya around his scenic village, he falls in love with her. But she returns to Singapore after a mere ten-day stay.

Then she calls him to Singapore on a false pretext, pretending her love for him. In truth she wants to save her job by showing Krishna’s skills on the TV channel she works for.

The gullible Krishna is eager to go to Singapore. But his dadi (Rekha) doesn’t want to send him into the world. She fears that the clever world will use Krishna the way it used and destroyed his father Rohit.

Anyway, Krishna goes to Singapore with the promise that he will conceal his qualities from the world. In the concrete jungle full of high-rises and skyscrapers, Krishna meets both good and bad people. But, can he conceal his super powers? Is he clever enough not to be used by people for their advantage? And will he be able to stop a megalomaniac scientist from making a computer that sees the future? In all the action and drama that follows, Krishna finds more than love. He finds someone whom he had presumed dead.

Right from the opening reels to its conclusion ‘Krrish’ keeps you riveted to the screen. With the exception of a few songs, the movie flows smoothly without dragging even for a moment. There are good hilarious moments in the first half. Even the movie’s supposed villain, Dr. Siddhant Arya (Naseeruddin Shah), is not without a comic knack.

But it is the action and stunts that stands out throughout the movie. Krrish’s giant leaps, his upward somersaults in the air, his skidding through the trees in the forest and his speedy movements (faster than a bullet) reminds me of the action from films like ‘Crouching Tiger’, ‘House of Flying Daggers’ and ‘Matrix’.

‘Krrish’, the movie, fuses these stunts with romance, comedy and fights in a very digestible dose. And the credit for this goes to Rakesh Roshan, the movie’s writer, producer and director. Roshan senior has made a quality product – a film that lays foundation for other films of similar genre. Although some stunts could be depicted graphically more realistically, but that would require a very huge budget.

‘Krrish’, quite an expensive movie by Indian standards, heralds the ‘superhero’ genre creditably.

Besides Hrithik’s superb performance in the film, Priyanka Chopra holds her ground and breezes through her role with the act that doesn’t demand serious histrionics. Rekha still has a natural charm in her beauty. She provides emotional moments in the film.

Naseeruddin Shah is eloquent as usual, not just in his dialogues but also his facial expressions. I wish he had a longer role in the film.

All said, ‘Krrish’ is definitely worth a watch, if not more. The film is a wholesome entertainer that will appeal particularly to teenagers and kids.

Dhoom 2

2006-11-25T06:42:00.000+05:30

Dhoom 2 : Movie Review

Cops and robbers stories never got so exhilarating in Bollywood. Sanjay Gadhvi’s film Dhoom 2 does not give you a moment to sit back. With its stylish look, incredible stunts and tongue-in-cheek humour, the movie keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat without any safety belt.

You can skip a roller-coaster ride for a movie like this. And you won’t miss a thrill. High speed chases, free-falls, pyrotechnics, death-defying stunts are all rolled together to give you goose bumps in every single reel of this 2.45 hr movie. And a lion’s share of credit for this goes to Hrithik Roshan , without whom this movie would have been a soulless body.

Story is not of as much importance to this movie as individual sequences revolving around robberies. As Hrithik Roshan ingeniously pulls off one impossible heist after another, you realize that the movie is not just about brawns, but brains too.

Sanjay Gadhvi makes his intentions clear in the very opening reels. In a desolate desert in Africa, an anonymous thief, a mysterious Mr. A (Hrithik), pulls off a daring robbery on a moving train. After the loot, as he sandboards through the golden dunes with the booty safe in his bag, the introductory titles roll.

Back in Mumbai, Ali ( Uday Chopra ) has graduated from a mechanic to a cop. He and his senior Jai Dixit ( Abhishek Bachchan ) work together to bring criminals to book.

Enters ACP Shonali Bose ( Bipasha Basu ), Jai’s college friend, now a sharp shooter who believes in gunning down thieves rather than catching them. She is an expert on the thefts by Mr. A, a mysterious, nameless thief and a master of guises whose real face none has seen.

Jai and Shonali team up to catch Mr. A on his next robbery in Mumbai. But the elusive thief slips through their fingers after stealing a priceless diamond. That’s not it. Mr. A throws a challenge to the cops by announcing his next target.

It is on this robbery Aishwarya Rai is introduced as a masked thief who impresses Mr. A. Sunehri (Ash) makes an impression on the international thief and soon wins his trust. Mr. A introduces himself as Aryan and takes Sunehri under his wing.

But there is another side to Sunehri. As she and Aryan go to Brazil for their next robbery, Jai and Ali keep close on their trail. Riveting action and stunts follow as Jai and Ali try to stop Aryan from his next crime.

It is better not to judge ‘Dhoom 2’ by Hollywood standards. Seen purely as a product of Hindi cinema, ‘Dhoom 2’ turns out to be a movie that redefines the action genre in Bollywood. And once again it is Hrithik Roshan who plays a pivotal role in stretching this quotient. The actor just keeps getting better at doing unimaginable stunts. He does sand-surfing, roller-blading, bungee jumping and much more with the mien of an expert. Besides the stunts, he stays in complete control of his character and convincingly brings out the emotional sides of Aryan in the second half. The movie truly belongs to him.

Abhishek Bachchan looks rugged playing the no-nonsense cop but is never able to rise above Hrithik’s presence. Bipasha Basu looks really hot and the camera scans her anatomy and assets at regular intervals to add some titillation to the thrills.

On the other hand, Aishwarya Rai doesn’t look least bit sexy despite wearing a variety of skimpy dresses. The gorgeous actress is not able to carry herself comfortably in revealing outfits. Perhaps she is a beauty that ought to remain covered.

Uday Chopra is the only source of humour in this action-packed thriller. Although his comedy is generic, the flair and ease with which he does it makes his character very entertaining.

Rimi Sen has a brief and forgettable role of Jai’s pregnant, cribbing wife.

‘Dhoom 2’ isn’t void of faults, and some of them are so glaring to be overlooked. Bipasha’s character Shonali is inexplicably dropped at the interval point and another character, an identical twin called Monali, is introduced in Brazil. And both Shonali and Monali have little significance to the movie’s story.

Secondly, after a series of intelligently conceived robberies in the first half, the last robbery in the film turns out to be lacklustre and without any thrill.

Thirdly, Pritam’s recycled and rehashed compositions that only evoke yawns and encourage you to go out for some refreshments.

Fourthly, the romance between Hrithik and Ash lacks the real spark.

All said, this Dhoom turns out to be bigger, better and bombastic than its prequel. It is essentially a cops and robbers story with some glamour and humour thrown in. In this tussle between cops and thieves, it is Love that wins in the end. After all, Aashiqon ka janaaza hai, zara Dhoom se niklega.

Watch it for Hrithik.

Kaushik Mitra

Ra-One

Avatar

De Dana Dan

The Rocket Singh - Salesman Of The Year

3 Idiots

Ghajini

Chandni Chowk To China

Slumdog Millionaire

Raaz - The Mystery Continues

Rock On !!!

Phoonk - The Black Magic

1920 - A Love Made in Heaven A Revenge Born in Hell !!!

A Wednesday !!

Bachna Ae Haseeno.........

Mission Istaanbul.....Daar ki aage JIT hain...

Kistmat Connection

Hastey Hastey !!!

Woodstock Villa

Jannat----Finding Heaven on Earth !!

U Me Aur HUM !!!

Tashan

Race --- Either its with Cars or its the Race of Life?

Jumper : "A guy, who can teleport."

Darling.......... hard too classify !!!

Strangers

Jodhaa Akbar

Alliens Vs Predator - Requiem

'Dus Kahaniyaan' -An interesting medley

Welcome ~~~ A comedy of errors ~~

Taare Zameen Par ! ~Every Child is Special ~~

Jab We Met !!!

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal ........

Saawariya

Aja Nachle...

Om Shanti Om

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

'Bhool Bhulaiyaa

The Train

Naqaab - The thriller

Hey babby !!!

Chakde India Chakde !!!

Partner !!!

Cash !!! Steal the diamond if u can !!!

Bong Connection !!!

Fantastic-4- Rise of the Silver Surfer

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

'Cheeni Kum' : Sugar-free Sarcasm

Shoot Out at Lokhanwala !!!

Metro !!!

Next summer, the greatest battle lies... within...Spiderman 3 (2007) !!!

Tara Rum Pum

Bheja Fry !!!

Namastey London !!!

Nishabd

Eklavya ~ The Royal Guard

===Salaam-E-Ishq ===‘Tribute To Love’====

Rakht !!!

Parineeta - The saga of love !!!

Guru !!!

Dus bahene karke le gayi Dil !!!

Aapna Sapna Money Money!!!

Kabul Express!!!

Chocolate!!!

Smallest Kuran !!!

Bhagam Bhag !!!

Kal Ho Na ho !!!

Illusions even trick your brain !!!

Babul !!! A movie which u'll definately like...

Casino Royale (2006)

Laage Raho Munna Bhai !!!

Krrish !!!

Dhoom 2

Welcome ~ A comedy of errors